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JOAN 


A TALE. 




BY 

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KHODA BROUGHTON-, 

ATTTHOE OF 

“COMETH UP AS A FLOWER,” ‘‘RED AS A ROSE IS SHE,” ETC. 



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. HEW YORK: 

D. APPLETON" AND COMPANY 

549 & 551 BRO 4 DWAY. 

18 TT. 






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J O AN. 


P AET I. 


CHAPTER I. 

“ And ye shall walk in silk attire, 

And siller hae to spare 1 ” 

WoLFEESTAisr is liumming this very 
softly to himself, half under his breath, 
half over. A girl at the house he is stay- 
ing at sang it last night, and it runs in his 
Jiead yet; a girl whose music-leaves he 
turned, whose music-stool he screwed up, 
and three of whose fingers he succeeded 
in squeezing when he gave her her candle 
at bedtime. Wolferstan has not got it 
on his conscience that he ever in all his 
life missed an opportunity of squeezing a 
woman’s hand. 

“ And siller hae to spare ! ” 

“Ah! that is just what I am afraid. 
she will not have, poor soul! ” 

^It is not the girl whose fingers he 
squeezed of whom he is thinking, but 
another. It is Easter-day, in the after- 
noon. Wolferstan is sitting on an old 
tree-trunk that once was a stout oak-tree, 
but through whose dry old veins not even 
this strong young spring, vigorously awak- 
ening, can send the green sap-blood rac- 
ing. Before Wolferstan’s eyes spread the 
ups and downs, the dead fern and live 
deer; the mighty single trees roomily 
stretching great arms on all sides of them 
into the free and wholesome air, and the 
bosky coppices of an English park. In 
his ears is the austere music of church- 
bells from different parishes, all seeming 
to tell with solemn mirth that “ Christ is 


risen.” Wolferstan is not going to church. 
He went this morning, and found her 
places in the hymn-book (out of which 
he afterward warbled with her) for the 
girl with the fingers. He is bound on a 
much disagreeabler errand now ; and so he 
thinks. He is going to pay a visit of con- 
dolence; yes — to condole with a young 
lady upon the loss of her grandfather. 

The death of a grandfather is gener- 
ally a very supportable affliction. But a 
small bottle would hold the tears that 
most people shed for their grandparents. 
Most of us can kiss that rod. But in the 
present case grandfather is a wide word. 
It means father, mother, brother, sister, 
home, standing, soft lying, high feeding, 
pretty nearly everything that makes life 
a morsel to be eaten with slow relish in- 
stead of a physic-draught to be quickly 
swallowed with wry faces. It is difflcult 
to offer comfort to a person who has lost 
all these at one sweep. So Wolferstan 
feels. Though he has been sitting on his 
tree-trunk for a good half-hour, cudgel- 
ing such brains as God has given him, 
nothing that sounds even to himself in 
the least degree consolatory occurs to 
him. The only thing that will persist- 
ently recur to him — often and angrily as 
he has driven it away as utterly inadmis- 
sible — is the old and homely saw that 
“it is no use crying over spilt milk.” 
He cannot get rid of it. It comes back 
like a gnat, and sticks like a bur. Its 
rude philosophy thrusts itself between 
him and all suitabler forms of speech. 


4 


JOAN. 


, In despair he jumps up at last, and r 
begins to walk through the quickening, 
freshening grass toward the great old 
Hall, with four cold, gray towers ivy- 
muffled, that stands amid level velvet gar- 
dens fronting him. The hells are still ring- 
ing. The air is temperately cool; neither 
balmy nor yet sharp ; the sky looks high 
and chill and palely colored. Heaven 
seems far off, though it is Easter-day. 
Last time that he was here it was winter, 
and the hounds met here. A small, bright 
rime lay on the grass ; flashes of scarlet 
warmed up the cold and sunless colors 
of the weather-scarred, gray walls. The 
old squire was pottering about on his 
old horse. Well, the old squire is dead 
now ! dead suddenly. He was not among 
those who fumble and bungle long at the 
lock which shuts in the great secret. I 
think that more people than used to do 
so, go suddenly, nowadays. We have 
increased the speed of our traveling over 
this earth, why not also the quickness of 
our journey from this world into the 
next? Anyhow, he went quickly; not 
even in his own house or his own bed ! 
but in a public place, at a public meet- 
ing. With one stoop forward of .his gray 
head, with one groaning breath, he went 
and took the great and unavoidable stride 
without time for any pain or fear. 

Poor old squire! Yes, and that same 
day on which the hounds met here, Joan 
stood on the top of the steps in a mouse- 
colored velvet gown, shading with one 
hand the laughter of her eyes from the 
low, cool winter sun, which stared so 
hard at her. And the sun had good 
taste : she was worth staring at. He has 
reached the Hall-door by now ; mounted 
the steps, and rung the bell. 

“Nothing is changed!” he says to 
himself with a sort of irrational surprise, 
looking back at the park across which he 
has come, and at a herd of stags that are 
trooping from one glade to another, with 
a tossing of great horns and whisking of 
tiny tails. 

But, after all, why should the grass 


I look withered, and the deer’s plump 
flanks fall in because an old man is dead ? 
It would be much odder if they did. At 
least the footman who opens the door is 
changed. He has moulted his gay blue- 
and-yellow plumage, and now the sable 
rook is not blacker than he. 

As Wolferstan follows him through 
half a dozen rooms, big and little, ho 
looks round him affectionately. One 
always feels rather fondly toward a 
house where one has been happy, and 
Wolferstan has had many jovial moments 
in this one. Here stand the statues, just 
as they did on the night of the theat- 
ricals, when Joan made- such a sweet 
widow that he very nearly asked her 
to run the chance of being his. Here is 
Psyche, slenderly nude, with her butter- 
fly on her finger. The little serpent is 
stinging Eurydice’s cold white heel, and 
Hadrian still stands stern in his panoply. 

When at last they reach the sitting- 
room, toward which they finally tend, 
they find it empty. In it there is neither 
man nor mouse, nor woman either. The 
only live thing is a small faint fire that 
the sun is trying hard to kill, a little fire 
from whoso dull heart a red glow shines 
reflected in the old Dutch tiles, where 
Eve’s gluttony and Noah’s carouse are 
devoutly, yet grotesquely, wrought in blue 
and white. Near the hearth is drawn 
np an arm-chair, which, though it is pot 
at all rucked, up or disarranged, as it in- 
fallibly would have been had a man oc- 
cupied it, yet has the indescribable air of 
having been lately sat in. A book, with 
its back still warm and warped from hav- 
ing been held over the fire, gapes half 
open on the table. There are flowers — 
flowers everywhere ! They seem to have 
walked in through the open door of the 
neighboring conservatory. 

She has not come yet: perhaps she 
does not mean to come at all. He walks 
about nervously, saying over to himself his 
prepared speech, and trying to keep the 
spilt milk out of it. He strolls into the 
conservatory, and looks at the great and 


JOx\N. 


5 


fragrant array of flourishing blooms; a 
regiment of cyclamens, each with its sweet 
white ears laid hack; tulips, the vivid- 
ness of whose varnished coats makes* one 
wink ; an army of cinerarias, each blos- 
som a little scentless sun-disk of blazing 
color ; heavy, bashful roses that set one 
dreaming of June. Poor, poor Joan! 
What will she do without her flowers? 
Poor little Joan! 

As he thus kindly and pitifully ad- 
dresses her, in his own soul, and mentally 
strokes her, she enters. The tall old door 
opens, and she comes in with a soft and 
dragging step. For so slender a thing she 
treads heavily, does not she ? but sorrow 
puts leaden weights in one’s feet. Wol- 
ferstan has hardly ever before seen her, 
that she has not been either quite laugh- 
ing, or else with unborn or half-born 
laughter hovering in the corners of her 
happy eyes. It is not that she has pulled 
a long face, even now, or is dressed in the 
mourner’s airs, that some people, although 
truly sorrowing, think it right in such 
cases to wear. 

She comes to meet him with a smile, 
but alas! it has so clearly been put on 
only just outside the door, and is kept 
with such difficulty from brinily drown- 
ing itself. She looks half the size that 
he remembers her when last they parted, 
not that she ever was of the buxom sort. 
Ilers was never one of your great, luscious 
Bubens bodies, in whose depths of creamy 
flesh the poor little soul is oftenest lost and 
smothered. But now you can almost, as 
they say, see through her. One is always 
tenderly disposed toward thin people, 
though, in reality, they are not nearly such 
objects of compassion as the preposter- 
ously fat, toward whom no one’s heart 
yearns. 

Before he in the least knows what he 
is meaning to do (Wolferstan’s actions 
mostly get ahead of his intentions), he is 
standing before her, holding both her 
hands ; though the amount of their hith- 
erto acquaintance would not justify more 
than the moderate shaking of one. 


The trite and unconsoling consolations 
over which he labored so heavily on his 
tree-trunk depart to the limbo appointed 
for all abortions, and he finds himself say- 
ing hurriedly : 

“Do you mind my coming? do I both- 
er you? shall I go? ” 

“ Ho, don’t! ” she answers, with a sort 
of eagerness, giving his hands a little un- 
intentional squeeze of detention; “it is 
good to see some one! *I was so glad 
when they came and told me ; I thought 
I never was going to see any one again, 
and I have been alone — alone — such a 
long time ! ” Her very voice is changed ; 
it sounds faint, and yet hoarse, as if all its 
substance and sweetness had been soaked 
away in tears. “This is a bad house to 
be alone in, I can tell you,” she goes on 
in the same weak, spent kind of tone, lift- 
ing her eyes with a sort of relief to the 
pity of his face ; “ you do not know how 
ghostly the statues look at night; you 
have only seen the gallery when it has 
been well lit up ; and the suits of armor 
are worse — oh! far wope! last night I 
stared at them — I could not help it — un- 
til I could have sworn that there was a 
skeleton head under each visor ! ” 

She speaks the last words so low and 
so quickly that he finds it hard to hear 
them. 

“Poor soul!” he says, taking both 
the chill little hands, which are gradually 
growing warmer in his close clasp, into 
one of his, in which they lie quite com- 
fortably, and stroking their smooth backs 
with his freed one ; why did not you send 
for me? ” 

“That would have been so likely!” 
she says, with a little flash of maiden mirth 
struggling into her drowned eyes ; “ if I 
had, you would have thought that grief 
had unsettled my wits ! And not a soul 
has been near me,” she continues present- 
ly, raising her voice a little, and speaking 
with slow emphasis, while her eyes stiU 
rest on his full and solemn, and with no 
more apparent consciousness in them of 
his being man, and herself woman, than 


6 


J 0 AK. 


if he had been the grandfather she de- 
plores. “Not a soul! except the doctor 
twice; he said both times that I was to 
keep up, and take a fizzing draught, and 
not think of anything disagreeable, and 
remember that everybody died, ha ! ha ! — 
and the lawyer once — ” 

“ Yes ; and what did he say to you ? ” 
interrupts "Wolferstan, eagerly. 

“ He said — but why do you make me 
tell you? I see by your face that you 
know ! there is not a hedger and ditcher 
about that does not know — he said : ‘ My 
dear young friend’ (I never used to be 
his ‘ dear young friend ! ’ I used to be 
‘ Miss Dering,’ ” drawing up her little 
milk-white throat) — “‘my dear young 
friend, I am sorry that it has devolved 
upon me to be the bearer of ill-tidings to 
you, but — ’ ” (turning her head restlessly 
about like some poor dumb beast in physi- 
cal pain), “ ‘ that I was a beggar in short,’ 
those were not his words, of course ; he 
said it much more lengthily and round- 
aboutly. I think he kept me on the rack 
for ten good minutes, but that was what 
it came to ! ” 

“ And was that all ? did he tell you — 
did he say nothing else ? ” asks the young 
^fellow with quick anxiety. 

“ Was that all f ” she repeats with an 
almost angry emphasis, opening her eyes 
as widely as they will go ; “ was not that 
enough? Good Heavens I what else would 
you have had him say? what could be 
worse ? ” 

Wolferstan does not answer aloud, but 
to his own heart he says, “ Thank God ! ” 

“ When he first told me,” she goes on, 
as if speech were a relief, “I said I did 
not care a straw. I did not then ; he 
thought it was bravado, but it was not ; 
now I am beginning to care, dreadfully ! 
it is enough to make any one care, is not 
it?” 

“ Merciful God ! I should think it 
was ! ” 

For a moment or two they stand si- 
lent, their position unaltered. It does not 
occur to them to sit down or to loose each 


other’s hands. Sometimes, in trouble, 
the contact of warm human fiesh is more 
comforting than any spoken words. And 
the •sun comes in merrily, through the 
open window, and kisses them both, as 
not knowing which he likes best, and 
gives one stab more to the sick fire. 


CHAPTER II. 

“ But how is it,” resumes Wolferstan, 
presently, harking back to her former 
speech, “ that you say no one has been 
near you? Was not your uncle down 
here ? they told me that he was.” 

“ He came down here for the — the — I 
need not say it — you know,” she answers, 
shying away with unconquerable repug- 
nance from the grim word ; “ but he 
went away next day, and while he was 
here I did not see him, I would not ; he 
is master here now, you know, and you 
may say that it was quarreling with my 
bread-and-butter, but I could not; I 
staid in my room ; he never was at all 
kind or dutiful to himP 

At the last words her voice altogether 
breaks, and, snatching away both her 
hands from his, she covers all her small 
and woful face with them. It is perhaps 
as well ; since otherwise he would proba- 
bly have gone on holding them to the 
present day. 

“ You have heard all about it, I sup- 
pose?” she says after a pause, sitting 
listlessly down near the window, and 
pulling out of her pocket a pocket-hand- 
kerchief rather finer than a cobweb, and 
with an inky border a foot deep, accord- 
ing to our sensible fashion of makings even 
our reluctant noses mourn our dead. “ I 
suppose you saw it in the papers. I read 
the account of it in them all. I tried to 
fancy that it had nothing to say to me ; 
there were two other sudden deaths in 
the Times on the same day — a young 
woman and a little child — I wondered 


JOAN. 


7 


how many people each of them had to be 
sorry for them ; the worst part of crying,” 
she says, with a slow and dragging ac- 
cent, “is when one cries alone. I was 
the only person who cried for him.” 

AVolferstan looks down contritely. 
There is no earthly reason why he should 
have wept for old Squire Bering, and yet 
he would give fifty pounds to be able, 
truthfully, to tell her that he had shed 
tears for him. Even though, untruth- 
fully, he would tell her so, only that he 
knows she would not believe him. He 
tries to mutter something to the effect 
that one may be very sorry for a thing 
without crying about it ; but she goes on 
without paying the slightest heed to his 
well-meant mumble. 

“ Bo you know,” she says, leaning for- 
ward, and looking solemnly at him, “ that 
only the evening before — after I had bid- 
den him good-night, and was half-way 
up-stairs to bed — something me back 

to have one other look at him ? he was 
sitting, so ” (resting one elbow on a little 
table near her, and pushing her fingers 
through her hair and looking as unlike 
any old man as it is well possible to look), 
“ you know what beautiful white hair he 
had — mine is coarse in comparison with it 
— and, young as you are, it was as thick 
as yours I He asked me why I had come 
back, and I could not say, I had no rea- 
son I ” 

“ Poor soul ! ” 

Wolferstan is aware that he has said 
this two or three times before, and would 
be glad to vary it, did he know how, but 
there are few ejaculations that hit the 
tepid medium between the very much too 
warm and the rather too cold. 

“The next morning,” she goes on, 
by-and-by, with a long, low, sighing 
breath, “ the morning, you understand, 
I went out to the Hall-door to see him 
mount his horse, as I always do, always 
did^ I mean ” (changing the tense with a 
sort of sob), “ and, just as he was riding 
away, he turned half round and said, ‘ Go 
in, my Joan, this wind will cut you in 


two ! ’ Those were the very last words I 
ever heard him say I does it not seem 
odd” (turning with awed, yet puzzled 
appeal, more fully toward him), “that 
such a trivial speech should be the very 
last I should have heard, or ever shall 
hear now from him ? ” Then she adds in 
a lower key, and more as a speculation 
than a complaint: “Who will care how 
the wind cuts me now, I wonder? No, 
don’t say that you will ; it is very kind 
of you, but it is nonsense ! there is no 
reason why you should ! ” 

Again there is a silence, a longer one. 
Wolferstan breaks it at last. 

“ And so you have to turn out of the 
old house? ” he says, pityingly, casting his 
eyes regretfully round him, looking up at 
the painted ceiling, where water-gods and 
sea-nymphs are frolicking, naked and un- 
ashamed, in a sapphire sea ; and then at 
the tapestried walls, where gray-faced 
knights and leaden-colored ladies have 
been bowing and parading and twanging 
guitars for the last four hundred years. 

“ Yes,” she answers, her eyes follow- 
ing his ; “ and if my soul were to have to 
be torn out of my body, I think it could 
hardly be with a worse wrench I There 
is to be a sale, you know,” she goes on in 
a monotonous key of utter spiritlessness ; 
“ my uncle hates the place : he is going 
to sell everything, even the pictures — 
think of that ! — he says that his ancestors 
may go as cheap as Charles Surface’s, for 
all he cares ! if I were not sure ” (with a 
melancholy yet gracious smile) “ that you 
had plenty of your own, I would ask you 
to buy them ! ” 

“ Shall I? ” he cries, eagerly; “I will 
bid for them with pleasure, if you like ! ” 
nor does he, in his compassionate readi- 
ness to saddle himself with all her fore- 
fathers, for one moment reflect on what 
he will do -with the seventy or eighty odd 
Berings, when he has got them. 

But she shakes her head, and says, 
“I was only joking!” Another pause. 
“You must not think,” begins Joan again, 
finally drying her poor eyes on the gossa- 


8 


JOAN. 


mer pocket-handkerchief, which is adapt- 
ed neither for a great grief nor a cold, 
“that I mean always to go on moaning 
and whimpering like this ; I suppose it is 
seeing you that has set me off again ; else 
for three days — nearly four — I have not 
shed a tear ; I hoped I had come to the 
end of them ; there must he some end to 
one’s stock, must not there ? and I think ” 
(drawing herself together, as one that 
nerves himself for a hard struggle) “ that 
I have some little pluck about me some- 
where, if I could only come at it.” 

After an interval : 

“Even if I could have had my own 
choice,” she says, with a deep gravity, 
“I would not always have been prosper- 
ous; I do not think that the people who 
always have things their own way are 
ever worth much ; of course ” (shudder- 
ing), “I would not have chosen such a 
trouble as this; but, after all, if one al- 
ways had smooth sailing, it could never 
be known — one could never know one’s 
self what sort of stuff one was made of ; I 
have a good chance now of showing 
what sort of stuff I am made of, have 
not I?” 

He looks at her with a compassion too 
deep for words. He is always sorry for 
every woman ; merely for being a woman, 
and for being by this dismal accident de- 
barred from all the sinful and most of the 
unsinful diversions of this life. His pity 
is centupled in the case of this frail knight- 
errant going out so valiantly in her paste- 
board armor to battle with the great and 
ruthless dragon of this bitter world. 

“At least,” she says, clinching one 
slight hand, and looking upward, as one 
that registers a vow, “at least I will not 
be knocked down by this first blow, like 
ripe corn by a hail-storm ! they have al- 
most explained away God nowadays, 
have not they?” she says, putting her 
hand in a sort of bewildered way to her 
forehead ; “ so perhaps it is not he, but 
yet I feel that there is something outside 
of me — something not me — that will help 
me if I make a good fight ! ” 


“You do not look as if it would take 
a very big blow to knock you down,” he 
says, sadfy, looking at her with a deep 
commiseration, tliat is almost angry in its 
helplessness. For a moment he even wa- 
vers in his hitherto inviolable fidelity to 
fat women, as he notices how prettily and 
carelessly her slim young body lies in the 
great arm-chair into which she has thrown 
herself. It would hol(J three Joans. 

“ And yet,” she answers, lifting her 
white lids, and considering his face awhile, 
full-eyed, with a quiet smile, as if taking 
his measure — “and yet, perhaps — who 
knows? — a heavier one than would be 
needed to demolish you; it is not the 
bulky Samsons of this world that are the 
really strong ones ; it is the small and wiry 
people, who, even if they are thrown 
down, are up again in a moment, and none 
the worse! ” 

“Am I a bulky Samson?” he asks, 
with a half laugh ; “if Samson were only 
five foot eleven’in his shooting-boots, and 
rode only thirteen stone, history has been 
very partial to him! ” A clock strikes; 
wrongly, of course. Who ever heard of 
a drawing-room clock, with a face look- 
ing out from amid a lovely fiourish of 
Dresden-china flowers, that told the hours 
aright ? But its voice, though a mistaken 
one, reminds Wolferstan that there is such 
a thing as time. “ I have been- here an 
hour,” he says, “and I meant to stay ten 
minutes ; I wiU go, but first — tell me — or, 
of course, if you do not like, do not tell 
me — what your plans are? with whom 
you will live? whither are you going? 
I know that, if I counted the number of 
times that we have met, I should find that 
I had no business to ask ; but I will not 
count. Tell me — what is going to become 
of you? ” 

He has drawn much nearer to her, and 
is again looking at her with the same over- 
powering yet consciously useless compas- 
sion. As society stands, a young man is 
so very powerless to help a young woman 1 
To marry her is the one doubtful kind- 
ness he can show her ; and marriage, as 


JO AIT. 


9 


at present constituted, does not find favor 
in Wolferstan’s eyes. 

“ Do not be afraid ! ” she answers, 
with a smile ‘that, though sorrowful, is 
neither cowardly nor broken-spirited. “I 
am not going to the workhouse, nor yet 
to the Home for Lost Dogs or Decayed 
Gentlewomen ; I am going to stay with 
an aunt of mine — a sister of my mother’s : 
though she is my aunt, I have never seen 
her nor even heard much about her. He 
never talked to me about my mother’s 
people.” 

She is looking at him, but he has 
turned away his face, and is staring out 
of the window. 

“ Did not he ? ” he answers rather in- 
distinctly; a moment after : “An aunt? 
only an aunt ? no uncle ? ” 

“ He is dead.” 

“Any cousins?” 

“ I fancy so ; she says something about 
the girls.” 

“Sons?” 

“ I do not know ; I hope not ; I dis- 
like male cousins ; there is a sort of spu- 
rious brotherhood about them ! ” 

“ And you will make your home with 
this aunt ? will live with her ? ” 

“Until I can draw breath, and look 
about me.” 

He gives an impatient sigh, and a kick 
to a neighboring footstool. 

“ Do not look so lamentable ! ” she 
says, almost laughing; “it does sound 
deplorable, I own ; almost as bad as some 
of the cases in the Keport of the Gov- 
ernesses’ Institution ; no present income, 
no future prospects I But, after all, it 
might be worse ; since I am letting you 
into my private affairs, I may tell you 
that I have a thousand pounds that my 
godfather left me : that, at five per cent., 
will bring in fifty pounds a year ; one 
cannot positively starve on fifty pounds 
a year.” 

“ Enough to buy one gown, and per- 
haps a bonnet, you would have said a 
week ago.” 

“ Yes,” she answers, with a small but 


stifled sigh ; “ I must give up being fond 
of my clothes.” 

He shakes his head, as if to say that 
her affairs are beyond his mending. 

“ Well, in what part of the world am 
I to think of you, then?” he says, with 
another sigh, reluctantly taking up his 
hat. 

“ I do not flatter myself that you will 
think of me much, in any part of the 
world,” she says, a little dryly, and with- 
out any coquetry ; though it is a sentence 
decidedly susceptible of a coquettish treat- 
ment ; “ but I shall be in Blankshire.” 

“ jHy thoughts will have no long jour- 
ney, then ; that is my county ; do you 
know what your post-town is ? ” 

“ It looks like Helmsley,” she answers, 
drawing from her pocket a large and 
musky envelope, on which blazes a giant 
monogram, aflame with all the colors of 
the prism, and several more besides; 
“ pah ! how I hate patchouli ! it has in- 
fected my pocket-handkerchief and all 
my other letters ! ” 

“ Helmsley ! ” he repeats, with a bright- 
ening of eye and alacrity of tone ; “is 
that so, really? Then the plot is thicken- 
ing : Helmsley is our post-town, too ; we 
are not much more than three miles from 
it ; what is your aunt’s name ? of course 
I must know her ! ” 

“Her name is Moberley — Mrs. Mo- 
berley.* 

Wolferstan looks puzzled. “I know 
a Mrs. Moberley — at least— yes — I suppose 
I may be said to know her — certainly, 
quite as much of her as I ever wish to 
know — but she is not your aunt ? ha ! ha ! 

I wish you could see her — it is odd I” 
(wrinkling his forehead, and putting one 
hand up to it as if to help his recollec- 
tion) “ but I thought I knew every living 
soul within a radius of ten miles of Helms- 
ley. Moberley! Moberley! how stupid 
of me ! can you tell me the name of her 
house ? ” 

“Portland Villa,” replies Joan, fol- 
lowing the instinct which prompts us al- 
ways to swallow three times as often as ' 


10 


JOAN. 


usual if we liave a sore-throat, and to turn 
our eyes a second time toward any disa- 
greeable object which has accidentally 
regaled them, by smelling her aunt’s let- 
ter again and making a face over it. 

Wolferstan’s jaw has dropped; in one 
second the complacence has died out of 
his face. 

“ Then it is the same ? ” he says, in a 
low and awe-struck key ; “hut — you were 
joking! she is not your aunt — it is im- 
possible I she cannot be ! ” 

“But she is!” replies Joan, looking 
in some surprise at his aghast and discom- 
fited features; “ why should not she be? 
is she too young to have a niece ? ” 

“And are the Miss Moberleys your 
cousins — your first cousins ? ” continues 
the young man, still speaking with a slow 
and horror-struck emphasis. 

“Naturally! if she is my aunt and 
they are her daughters,” says Joan, a lit- 
tle tartly ; “ that is not a very hard sum 
to do.” 

“ Gracious Heavens above us ! ” 

“ I wish,” cries the girl, reddening a 
little, “ that you would be more explicit 
and less ejaculatory ; if you know any- 
thing very bad about them, please tell me 
directly ! are they mad f have they done 
anything disgraceful? ” 

His face catches the flush from hers, 
but the emotion which expresses itseK by 
the color of a faint, fine sunset *on her 
cheeks, is painted in full, deep copper 
tints on his. 

“You are making me very uncom- 
fortable,” she goes on after a moment’s 
waiting, during which, bathed over head 
and ears in confusion, he is vainly strug- 
gling to overtake a speech which ever 
eludes him, “ and it is not fair ; you ought 
to tell me ! is there anything odd about 
them?” 

He tries to laugh in a stammering, 
floundering fashion. “ Odd ! oh dear, no ! 
not that I know of! upon my honor — 
please do not look as if you did not be- 
lieve me — I — I — know nothing to their 
* disadvantage ; to tell the truth, I — I — 


you know I have been a great deal away 
from home — I — I — hardly know them ; 
it was only that it — it — took me by sur- 
prise, don’t you know ; it — it seemed 
unlikely.” 

Her sincere and straightforward eyes 
are looking directly at and through him ; 
a small grain of half-amused pity steals 
into them, as he writhes and stutters 
before her. 

“You might be making a speech at a 
wedding-breakfast,” she says, sarcastical- 
ly; “I never heard anything so halting 
anywhere else.” After a thoughtful pause : 
“You said you ‘ wished I could see her,’ 
why did you wish that I should see her ? 
is she such a very remarkable' sight ? ” 

During the moment’s breathing-space 
of silence that she gave him, Wolferstan 
has been making some faintly prosperous 
efforts to recover his countenance; but, 
at this question, he has a frightful relapse. 
Thus, brought face to face with his own 
words, unable, beneath the honesty of 
her eyes, to eat them, as he would other- 
wise be delighted to do, he is too ebahi 
to attempt any answer whatever. Joan 
looks away in pity from his scarlet dis- 
comfiture. There is a pitch of confusion 
which it makes one hot to witness, and 
Wolferstan has reached it. 

“ I will ask you no more questions,” 
she says, quietly. “I see that 'there is 
some mystery, which I shall soon have 
the opportunity of fathoming. I suppose 
that she is very odd-looking — ungainly ? 
eccentric? dowdy?” — stealing a covert 
glance at him at each epithet, to see 
which epithet seems to hit the right nail 
on the head. “Well, I can forgive hei 
for being any one of the three, or even 
all three put together ! ” After a pause : 
“Though you will not reveal anything 
about the people^ you will not mind tell- 
ing me what sort of a place it is. Is it a 
good house ? are there nice gardens ? — a 
pretty park ? ” 

Wolferstan opens his eyes. “I do 
not think that there is much parTcfi he 
answers, slowly; “it is not exactly the 


JOAN. 


11 


sort of place where one expects a park ; 
it is not a large house, you know ; in fact 
— well — a small one ! — and it is not very 
far from — indeed, rather close to — the 
road.” 

He makes these admissions as if they 
were being dragged out of him by hot 
pincers. 

“ About how small ? ” asks Joan, seri- 
ously, as she mentally tries to cut and 
pare down her ideas to the right size. He 
looks up at the distant ceiling, and round 
at the wide walls. 

“ I think the whole of it would pretty 
nearly go into this room! ” 

Despite her heartiest efforts, her face 
lengthens a little. 

“ It must be a Tiovel^'^'' she says, in a 
low voice ; then, resolutely pulling herself 
together again : “ It is no great matter,” 
she says, steadily; “there is something 
cozy about a small house ; there is no 
hardship in being shut up in a narrow 
space with nice people — and they are 
nice” — (looking resolutely at him, and 
speaking with a determined emphasis) — 
“ I Tznow they are nice ; no one that was 
not nice could liave written this — ” (again 
glancing at the ill-savored missive she 
holds in her hand). “ A letter of condo- 
lence is a good test.” 

He says neither yea nor nay ; he has 
already taken up his hat, and has been in 
the agonies of going for the last five 
minutes. Now he puts out his hand. 
“ Good-by,” he says, looking at her with 
a grave and undissembled regret, and — 
which is not altogether usual with him — 
neither saying nor looking any more than 
he thoroughly means ; “ it is not quite so 
bad to say ‘good-by,’ now that I know 
for certain that we shall soon shake hands 
again ; and meanwhile send me a line, will 
not you? — ‘Guards’ Club’ will always 
find me — if I can do anything for you.” 

“It is not a very likely ‘ if,’ ” she an- 
swers, gently. “No — henceforth no one 
is to do anything for me. The new 
regime has begun : I am to do everything 
for myself. I am even learning to dress 


my own hair ; see — it* is not so bad ! — 
and, when you come to see me at Port- 
land Villa, you will find it better still. 
Good-by.” 

She is smiling, but her eyes are wet : 
the tears indeed have overbrimmed, and 
are dropping down her white and fine- 
grained cheeks. 

And so he leaves her. As he walks 
back the church-bells are dumb, and he 
neither whistles nor sings. Ho has lost 
two grandfathers himself in his day, with 
grandmothers to match, and borne it like 
a Trojan. But this is different. He feels 
as if his hour’s stay within those gray, 
walls had made him a soberer, sadder 
man. But we are creatures of habit ; 
and that very same evening sees, him again 
squeezing his old friend’s fingers under 
the candlestick; indeed, as she is now 
prepared for the manoeuvre, and not un- 
willing, he finds himself in temporary 
possession of her whole hand ! 


CHAPTEPv HI. 

Yes 1 the new regime has begun. No 
one beyond childhood is fond of a new 
order of things merely because it is new. 
Everybody hates new boots ; most people 
hate new situations. 

On most ears the joy-bells of New- 
Year’s -eve, rashly, and over -hastily 
mirthful, jar. "Why, in Heaven’s name, 
should we pull bells and get drunk, be- 
cause we are one twelvemonth nearer 
“ the Conqueror Worm? ” If it were the 
worm that rang the bells, we could under- 
stand his jollity. 

Joan’s new regime^ over which she 
has about as much reason to exult as we 
over our new year, may be said to begin 
as she steams out of the station at Dering, 
with the footman standing on the plat- 
form, and touching his hat to her for the 
last time. She tried to inaugurate the 
new epoch last night, when she made a 
zealous effort to pack her owm clothes ; 


12 


JOAN. 


and, after hours of patient but unskilled j 
wrestling, rose from before the imperials, 
which indignantly disgorged her too nu- 
merous gowns — rose fagged and red, yet 
semi-triumphant under the idea that at 
least she had succeeded in getting every- 
thing in — only to discover behind her a 
forgotten and overlooked heap, hardly 
inferior in size and incompressibility to 
that with which she has been contending. 
Thereupon the old regime returns for the 
moment, and her maid, who has been 
looking on in impatient pain at dresses 
folded in the wrong places — at vacuums 
where no vacuums should be — and a gen- 
eral inartistic inequality of level, retakes 
her office and for the last time packs. 

When all her imperials — great and 
many, as if she were an American — are 
at length shut, locked, and strapped, Joan 
eyes them with a new distrust. 

“ If the house is as small as he said, 
they will never get into it ! ” 

Joan has no good-by kisses to give, 
at least not to people. She kisses a chair, 
a walking-stick, a pair of muffetees that 
she herself had knitted only two months 
ago ; but they do not kiss her back again, 
and one-sided kissing is, as every one 
knows, a discouraging employment. She 
cannot even kiss the fresh spring grass 
that grows above her grandfather’s head, 
for no fresh green grass does grow above 
it. lie lies far down in a great and peo- 
pled vault — the Bering mausoleum, on 
the building of whose solid grewsomeness 
some by-gone Bering spent a fortune. It 
would be small comfort to Joan to go 
inside the high-spiked iron railings, and 
give her forlorn good - by kiss to the 
great stone slabs that cover the entrance. 
It would be given to twenty others as 
much as to him. 

vf The journey that is before her is long, 
so she sets off early. For the last time 
she opens her eyes on a lace-edged pillow, 
and looks round at her dainty walls, 
palely hung in shimmering green, at her 
toilet-table, at the cheval-glass in which 
she has so often seen and so thoroughly 


enjoyed the sight of the reflection of her 
own figure and Worth’s gowns. 

The thought just passes through her 
head, “ In what sort of a room shall I 
wake to-morrow ? ” but she dismisses it. 
“ What does it matter ? ” 

For the last time she drinks her coftee 
out of a canary-colored cup, with little 
ladies and gentlemen making love upon 
it in the easy, sunshiny, practical way in 
which china love is always made — a cup 
so thin and transparent that you hardly 
feel it between your lips as you sip. For 
the last time she is carried to the station 
on 0-springs, drawn through the first, 
sharp freshness of a young April morn- 
ing by a pair of satin-coated bays, tightly 
bearing-reined, and loftily stepping over 
their own noses. 

You will say that there is nothing af- 
fecting in these “ last times ; ” that if she 
were parting for the last time with a 
sweetheart — exchanging with him split 
rings or crooked sixpences-^-you could be 
sorry for her, but not now. And yet he 
could be much more easily and cheaply 
replaced than can satin hangings or bay 
thorough-bred s. 

For the last time the footman gets her 
her ticket, for the first and last time (this 
is perhaps the exact moment when the 
hew life opens and the old** one closes) he 
tells her in which van he has put her 
boxes ; hitherto in all her former travels 
this has been no concern of hers. 

With one ear-piercing yell, as of a lost 
soul, the train is ofi[’, and with a parting 
view of the footman and of all the port- 
ers, looking rather relieved at having one 
more of the morning trains off their 
minds, J oan is off too. Past quite famil- 
iar fields first — Ms fields, where she seems 
to know every hedge-row thorn, every 
pasturing cow, as well as she knows all 
the little dips and pleasant rises in the 
park, where the very sunshine and the 
skittish winds seem to belong specially to 
the Berings ; then past farms and wheat- 
fields, and rick-yards less familiar ; then 
quite strange. 


JOAN. 


13 


Joan longs to cry. What do sore- 
hearted dogs do — dogs who cannot cry — 
into the wistfulness of whose sorrowful 
eyes no tears can steal, and yet who have 
quite as much capacity for the sufferings 
that the affections cause, as any Niobe 
that ever wept herself to stone? But 
Joan can cry, and thanks God for it. 
The tears are already dripping one after 
another, quick and large, on her crape 
lap, when all inclination to weep is sud- 
denly and effectually choked and killed 
by the discovery that, on the seat oppo- 
site to her, a child is deposited — a fat, 
cr^p^-haired, prosperous child — who is 
staring at her with unblinking, brazen 
pertinacity ; in solemn astonishment that 
a grown-up person can cry. Then her 
tears seem dried and burnt up at their 
fountain ; she puts her pocket-handker- 
chief back into her pocket, feeling sure 
that she will no longer need it. 

It is perhaps as well. One must stop 
crying some day, and this day, Monday, 
April 12th, is perhaps as good as any 
other. It is as difficult to weep in a train 
with a person opposite looking at you, as 
it is to eat sandwiches gracefully and 
comfortably under the like circumstances. 
By-and-by, finding that Joan furnishes 
no further phenomena for observation, 
the child slithers down from its seat, and 
begins to run playfuUy up and down the 
carriage upon the inmates’ feet. Then it 
climbs up again on the seat and thrusts 
most of its body out of the open window, 
excluding air and view; being forcibly 
pulled down and reseated by a palpitat- 
ing parent, it screws up its nose and 
howls. 

Joan’s is a long and weary journey, 
and there are many changes. The ticket 
that the footman got her does not last 
her for the whole length ; she has to get 
another for herself. It is market-day, 
and for some other and unexplained rea- 
son there are more people than usual 
traveling. She has to stand — one of a long 
string of people — before the ticket-office, 
with a heated market-woman before her. 


and a high-flavored, hurried man treading 
on her gown, thrusting her on, and rough- 
ly urging her to be quick in taking up her 
change, behind her. 

She forgets in which van her luggage 
was put. She is nearly knocked down by 
a porter and truck trundling noisily down 
the platform, inexorable as Destiny and 
as unalterable in their course. The other 
porters are overworked and unkind, and 
have quite laid aside their usual suavity. 
The attention of most of them is occupied 
by a furious man-passenger, who has lost 
his portmanteau and is dealing death and 
damnation round to the whole staff in 
consequence. When at length, by dint 
of painful perseverance, she has induced 
one of them to give her his reluctant at- 
tention, she finds that his whole soul re- 
volts against the number and magnitude 
of her boxes. 

His sense of fitness is evidently jarred 
by finding that a single woman traveling 
ignobly alone, without maid or footman 
or male protector, and who, by all the 
laws of analogy and probability, should 
liave been contented with one modest 
canvas-covered box and a carpet-bag, is 
furnished with an array of imperials that 
would not disgrace a countess. 

From a conscientious desire to econo- 
mize, she travels the last half of her jour- 
ney second-class. The carriage is at first 
full, gorged to repletion with market- 
people who crowd in in much greater 
number than the carriage can hold, and 
jocosely sit upon each other’s knees. 
They gradually diminish, as each station 
drains a few off, and she is at length left 
tete-d-Ute with one man, distinctly drunk, 
who insists on shaking hands with her 
when he too, at last, to her infinite relief, 
gets out. When at length (to her it seems 
a very long length) the train draws up at 
Ilelmsley station, she is alone. 

It is evening ; well on toward night, 
indeed, and the station-lamps gleam all 
arow. Having got out, she stands look- 
ing wistfully about to see whether she 
can notice any one that looks as if he 


14 


JOAN. 


had come to meet her. In vain. The 
station is rather empty ; there is no one 
that looks the least expectant, or is eying 
with any air of possible proprietorship 
any of the men or women that the train 
is disburdening itself of. "Work being 
tolerably slack, the porters are able to at- 
tend to her. In process of time — it takes 
time — all her great boxes stand on the 
platform. 

“ Where to — please, ma’am ? ” 

“I suppose that they must have sent 
to meet me,” she answers, uncertainly. 
“Do you know if there is a carriage 
here? Mrs. Moberley’s carriage ? ” 

“ What name did you say, ’m ? ” 

“Moberley — Mrs. Moberley,” speak- 
ing with painstaking distinctness. 

He shakes his head. 

“Do not know any one of that name. 
— Jim, run and see whether there’s a car- 
riage a-waiting.” 

In two minutes Jim is back. 

“There ain’t no carriage of any 
kind.” 

A disheartened chill creeps over Joan. 
They have neither come nor sent. 

“There is no cart for the luggage- 
then, either, of course ? ” 

“ No, there ain’t no cart neither.” 

“ I must hire a fly, then, I suppose,” 
she says, swallowing a sigh. “ Will one 
fly .take them all? if not, I must have 
two flies.” 

“ There ain’t no flies here, ’m,” replies 
the porter, suavely; “unless you order 
them aforehand.” 

“No flies!” repeats Joan, eyes and 
mouth both opening in utterest discom- 
fiture ; “ then how am I to get there ? ” 

“ They keep a fly at the Eailway Inn, 
’m,” says Jim, who is younger and ten- 
derer-hearted than his comrade. “You 
can have that if it is not out.” 

“And where is the Railway Inn?” 
she asks, catching at this straw, and with 
a faint gleam of comfort dawning on her 
soul. “ Is it near ? ” 

“Just over the way, ’m,” he answers, 
pointing across the line to the other side 


of the station ; “ not more nor a hundred 
yards off.” 

“Will you go and order it for me 
then, please?” she cries, eagerly; “tell 
them to get it ready at once — as soon as 
ever they can I ” (lapsing unintentionally 
into the tones of polite authority and 
command that have been habitual to her 
all her life). 

“If it is in, ’m ; but it is mostly out.” 

With this cold comfort he leaves her. 
She sits down on the smallest of her 
boxes, with a weighty dressing-case that 
makes her knees ache, on her lap. She 
looks vacantly round ; first at an engine 
that is fussing and snorting about by it- 
self; then at a man who is shutting up 
the book-stall; then through the doors 
of the glaring refreshment-room at the 
giant-headed young ladies and commer- 
cial travelers exchanging gallantries. By- 
and-by her emissary comes back. 

“Please, ’m, it is out! ” 

She has not faced this possibility, 
though he has warned her of its likeli- 
hood. It seemed one of those things that 
are too bad to be true. 

“ It took a party up to Brickhill this 
afternoon, and it ain’t back yet; they do 
not expect it back for another couple of 
hours I ” 

“ Then what am I to do ? ” says Joan, 
still sitting on her box, and speaking 
with slow desperation. 

She does not mean it as a question put 
to the porter, but more as an ejaculation, 
a protest addressed to Destiny-^to Nature 
— to the dumb, distant sky, where all the 
nightly fires are beginning to be lit. But 
he takes it to himself. 

“ Perhaps, ’m, if you would step across 
and speak to Mr. Smith yourself — it is he 
as keeps the Railway Inn.” 

“I will,” she says, catching at the 
suggestion ; “ thank you.” 

And so rises, and staggers across the 
line as quickly as the weight of her dress- 
ing-case will let her. 

“Just oppo-si?^, ’m,” says the porter. 


JO AI^. 


15 


leaning heavily and lengthily on the last 
syllable of the word, accompanying her 
outside the station and pointing. “You 
cannot miss it ! ” 

Then he goes and leaves her alone in 
the world. 

Oh, why — oh, why did not he stay 
and escort her? But he spoke truth. 
She cannot miss it. “Railway Inn” in 
gilt letters across the wall; “Railway 
Inn” in gilt letters across the blinds. It 
“ tells its name to all the hills,” as plainly 
as Wordsworth’s cuckoo. About the door 
stand a knot of men enjoying bad tobac- 
co, starlight, and small beer, and before 
the door stands a butcher’s cart, whose 
master has evidently just pulled up to 
refresh himself. 

They all take their pipes out of their 
mouths, and stop talking as she ap- 
proaches. Joan has entered a score of 
well-thronged drawing-rooms, has made 
her courtesy to her sovereign and danced 
with her sovereign’s sons, with a good 
deal less nervousness than she now ex- 
periences in introducing herself to this 
half-dozen of convivial boors. 

“ I am sorry to hear that your fly is 
out,” she says, abruptly, and looking from 
one to the othe?, as not knowing to 
which her question belongs. 

“Yes, miss, it is; it took a party to 
BrickhiU this — ” 

“I know,” she answers, interrupting; 
“ and have you no other conveyance ? no 
wagonette ? no dog-cart ? ” 

“I ’ave a dog-cart, miss, but you see 
my son has took it to market to Ongar 
this morning, and he’s oftenest not back 
afore ten or eleven ! ” 

What camel’s back could stand such 
a last straw as this ? Were it not for the 
audience Joan would put down her dress- 
ing-case in the dusty road, would sit 
upon it, and break into forlorn weeping. 
As it is, she only looks round rather piti- 
fully — for they are not drunk, and seem 
quite ready to be civil and sorry — and 
says, sighing patiently : 

“Then I must walk; do you think 


you could help me to find a boy to carry 
tlm ? it is very heavy, I do not think that 
I could carry it for three miles, and I 
believe that that is the distance.” 

“ If you please, miss, which direction 
is it you are going in ? ” asks a man who 
has not spoken hitherto ; a man with a 
purple nose, a husky voice, and one of 
those blue blouses that all oxen, calves, 
and sheep, must regard with so lively a 
distrust and aversion. 

“ I am afraid that I do not know even 
that,” she answers, turning to this new 
interlocutor, and speaking with a starved 
little smile. “I only know the name of 
the house, and the name of the lady to 
whom it belongs — Portland Yilla — Mrs. 
Moberley — Mrs. Moberley — Portland Vil- 
la ! ” laboriously repeating and elaborat- 
ing each syllabi^ 

“Po-ortland Villa! ’’repeats he, du- 
biously; “you do not happen to know, 
miss, which side of the town it is on? 
they’ve been building a many new villas 
lately. — Bill, do you know where Po-ort- 
land Villa is ? ” 

BiU shakes his head. He does not 
know. Hone of them know. Portland 
Villa is apparently not much known to 
fame. 

“ I should not wonder,” suggests the 
landlord, presently, “if it were one of 
them houses on the London Road ; little 
houses with a bit of garden 'at the back, 
about three miles out of the town ; just 
after you pass the Cancer ’Orspital and 
afore you come to the Lunatic Asylum.” 

Joan shudders. Good Heavens I What 
a situation ! 

“ If that is your road, miss,” says the 
husky butcher, affably, “ why it is mine 
too ; I can give you a lift as far as the 
’orspital ; it won’t take me none out of 
my way.” 

“You are very good,” answers Joan, 
not yet quite taking in the situation ; 
“ thank you very much ; you are going 
to drive in that direction ? ” 

He nods toward the cart, and the 
stout gray horse, who, with his nose in a 


16 


JOAN. 


bag, is waiting with the good-humored 
patience engendered by long habit out- 
side in the starlight. 

“That is my cart, miss, and I don’t 
mind giving you a ride in it.” 

She gives a little unintentional gasp, 
but happily nobody notices it. It is not 
often, perhaps, that it has happened to a 
lady to drive in the morning to a station 
in a barouche, behind a pair of sleek 
thorough-breds, and with a six-foot Lon- 
don footman to open the door for her: 
and to drive /ram a station in the even- 
ing in a butcher’s cart. However, it is 
butcher’s cart or nothing, so she chooses 
the former. Not being used to mounting 
into carts, and being tired and rather 
faint, she shows no great agility, and a 
chair is brought out to aid her. By its 
help she clambers in, ^d her dressing- 
case is solemnly handed up after her. It 
is the first time that it also has traveled 
in a butcher’s cart. Once seated, she 
looks apprehensively round to see whether 
any dismembered calf or murdered lamb 
is to be her companion. The butcher ap- 
parently divines her fears. 

“ Quite empty, miss,” he says, reas- 
suringly ; “there ain’t no jints ! ” Then 
he takes a stirrup-cup from the fair hand 
of an easy-mannered bar-maid, strips off 
the nose-bag, climbs in without a chair, 
shakes the reins, crying “ Tcl ! ” and they 
are off. 

For the first few minutes, Joan is en- 
tirely occupied by the novelty of her sen- 
sations, She wonders how she will turn 
a somersault backward over the backless 
bench. It seems to her only a question of 
time. And then how it shakes! The 
treatment that a physic-bottle experiences 
appears to her gentle in comparison of 
that to which she is subjected. She feds 
as if all her vital organs were getting 
hopelessly mixed and entangled together. 
J oan has hitherto only seen life from the 
boxes or stalls. She is now beginning to 
learn* how engaging it can look from the 
upper galleries. It is a fair, meek night, 
not very light, for not all the million lit- 


tle stars can make up for the absence of 
the one great moon ; but yet a very gentle 
twilight, by which lovers might kiss, and 
friends softly talk. The station is a mile 
distant from Helmsley town ; by-and-by 
they are jolting and clattering over the 
streets ; cabs and carraiges pass them : 
lamp-posts hold up their yellow lights to 
out-twinkle the white stars : people are 
walking along the trottoir ; dirty girls, 
idle soldiers, staring into such shops as 
are still open ; policemen. Then out of 
the town again, along a road that is 
neither a road nor yet a street — a melan- 
choly hybrid — dreary as only the outskirts 
of a town can be. Jiist-begun houses — 
half-finished houses, with the poles of 
their scaffoldings gauntly cutting the sky ; 
heaps of bricks. She shudders with a 
feeling of disheartened repulsion, saying 
to herself in heart-sickness , “ Is it possi- 
ble that it can be here ? ” But Fate is not 
quite so unkind. Farther still, till the 
country begins to be almost country again ; 
till the fields grow grass instead of bricks ; 
till the trees are trees with leafy crowns 
instead of naked scaffolding-poles. A 
large building in all the harshness of ut- 
ter squareness is lifting itself before their 
eyes ; sulkily outlined ^gainst the pensive 
night. Her companion pulls up. 

“ This is the ’orspital, miss.” 

Again she shudders. What a ghastly 
and ominous finger-post to point her to 
her destination I 

“That is your road, miss” (pointing 
with his whip). There is no chair to help 
her this time ; so she scrambles down as 
best she can. 

“No obligation at all, miss! I wish 
you good-night.” 

The old gray is in a hurry, apparently ; 
for he is off before she can make up her 
mind as to whether his master would be 
insulted by being offered a tip or no. 
She is left standing alone in the middle of 
the road. It is very still — very silent. 
There is not a passer-by; no smallest 
sound hits the ear. There is no light save 
what the stars give, and a dull red glim- 


JOAN. 


17 


mer from two or three of the windows of 
the great lazar-house beside her. What 
if she had been misled by a wrong infor- 
mation ? What if Portland Villa do not 
lie in this direction at all ? What will she 
do then? She will have to beg for a 
night’s lodging at the ’orspital. 

With a heart beating hard and quick 
from fear, and sick and weary with inani- 
tion, she hastens, as quickly as the weight 
that she has to carry will let her, toward 
the indicated goal. Four mean little de- 
^ched houses (even by this flattering 
starlight she can see that they are mean) 
lie ahead of her ; each seated in its garden- 
plot ; each with its own small carriage- 
drive and stone-posted entrance-gates. 
She reaches the flrst, and ravenously reads 
the name that, painted in black letters, 
adorns the gate-posts: “ Sardanapalus 
Villa ! ” On to the next : “ De Oressy Vil- 
la!” The third: “Campidoglio Villa!” 
There is only one more. For a moment 
she dares not look. Too much hangs on 
the issue of that glance. For a moment 
she looks in the other direction; then 
gathering up her courage, turns her eyes 
upon the fateful posts: “Portland Vil- 
la! ” 


CHAPTEPw IV. 

“ . . . . The little dogs and all, 

Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart, see they bark 
at me 1 ” 

It is not. quite easy to make out the 
name at a glance, from the fact that, 
through lack of a renewal of paint, the P 
has nearly disappeared. Still, enough of 
it remains to prove that it once was there ; 
enough to make Joan’s sunk spirits rise 
again with a leap. 

It is right, then ! It is Portland Villa, 
at last. The landlord’s instructions were 
correct. She puts out her hand to unlatch 
the gate ; only to discover that it is off its 
hinges, and — to remedy this defect — is 
tightly tied up with string. She sets 
2 


down her dressing-case in the road, while 
her fingers struggle to untie the manifold 
hard knots which guard the entrance to 
Mrs. Moberley’s bower. 

While she is thus employed she hears 
a scampering of many little feet on the 
graveled drive, and from the house 
rushes forth a volley of dogs, one over 
another. There seem to be twenty, at 
least; but subsequent counting reduces 
them to six : all smallish ; all apparently 
deeply, warmly hostile ; all barking with 
a deafening volubility ; all breathing 
wrath and indignation against the pro- 
fane intruder who is tampering with their 
entrance-gates at ten o’clock at night. 
Their harmony accompanies her all the 
time that she is struggling with the knots. 
They also make it doubtful to her wheth- 
er the bell which she has pulled on reach- 
ing the door has really rung. They bark 
themselves nearly off their own legs ; and, 
if there were any dead in the neighbor- 
hood, would infallibly wake them. 

But their conversation has changed in 
tone. It no longer means enmity so much 
as excitement, agitation, half-welcome. 
Having smelt her clothes to be good and 
genteel, they have convinced themselves 
that in such a gown she cannot be come 
begging. Anyhow, theirs is the only 
welcome she seems likely to get;^ for, 
whether the bell rang or no, it is certain 
that nobody answers it. She rings again, 
and again waits. Nothing happens. Can 
it be the wrong day ? Is it possible that 
they are all out ? — even the servants ; and 
that this army of little dogs is keeping 
house alone ? 

She pulls out her aunt’s letter from 
her pocket, and tries to decipher it by the 
starlight. “Monday, April 12th,” as 
plain as Charles Wain above her head. 
If there be a mistake it is not hers. Em- 
boldened by this fact, she rings a third 
time. After a considerable interval (not 
of silence, for the six dogs do not permit 
that, but of patient, dispirited waiting) 
she hears a slow and solid foot coming 
along the passage inside. A bolt is with- 


18 


JOAN. 


drawn ; the door opens ; a flood of light 
flows out from a lit hall, and a person — a 
female person — appears in the aperture. 

“I suppose that Mrs. Mob — ” begins 
Joan, then stops, for some lightning-quick 
intuition tells her that — wildly improb- 
able as it seems — this is Mrs. Moberley. 

“ Why, I am Mrs. Moberley, my dear,” 
says that lady, putting out both hands and 
drawing the girl in with them. “I did 
not think it could be you, because I did 
not hear any wheels; to tell you the 
truth, I think I must have been having 
forty winks. — Hold your tongues, dogs! 
get away, Regyl get away, Algy! get 
away, Charlie ! get away, Mr. Brown ! ” 

During this speech Miss Dering is re- 
garding her aunt with an intensity of 
gaze hardly compatible with her usual 
good manners ; but, indeed, it is difiicult 
to look at Mrs. Moberley on a first intro- 
duction in any other way than intensely. 

Mrs. Moberley is certainly startlingly 
fat ; but so you may say are many ladies, 
who, having outlived the thinning excite- 
ments of girlhood, take life easily, relish 
their food, and lapse without much diffi- 
culty into slumber. But Mrs. Moberley’s 
is not that tight, compact, well-busked 
fat which, to one class of minds, is not 
without its attractiveness. Hers is of 
the lyisteady order that destroys all land- 
marks and laughs at boundary-lines. Mrs. 
Moberley is absolutely without any shape 
at all. 

“ I do not know what Sarah can be 
thinking of not to have answered the 
bell I ” she goes on, as she recloses the 
door and ref astens the bolt ; “but I sus- 
pect the fact is, that she is at her supper ; 
and, as I always say to the girls, it is my 
belief that, if the last trump were to sound 
while she was at her supper, she would 
wait till she had finished before she would 
attend to it — ha ! ha ! ” Her very laugh 
is fat. If your eyes were shut you could 
swear that it had not proceeded from a 
slight person. 

Joan is speechless. She is thinking 
that she no longer wonders at Wolfer- 


stan’s wish that she could see her aunt. 
Certainly she is well worth seeing. 

But where are your things, child ? 
what have you done with your luggage ? ” 
continues Mrs. Moberley, recovering from 
her mirth, and preparing to reopen the 
door ; “ are they outside? ” 

“ I had to leave them at the station ; I 
could not get a fly — there was not one.” 

“No fly! ” repeats her aunt, in high 
and staccato accents of astonishment; 
“ why, what had become of the fly from 
the Railway Inn ? they have a very good 
fly there — quite a smart one; the girls 
always say that you could not tell it from 
a private carriage at a little distance.” 

“ It was out.” 

“ And — you — walked — all — the — 
way? Three miles and a half if it is a 
step” (opening her eyes as widely as the 
encroachments of her cheeks will let her). 

“ No, I did not,” replies Joan, with an 
hysterical laugh, for she has eaten but 
one bun all day, is faint and most weary, 
and it is so much worse than she had ex- 
pected. “I came in a butcher’s cart as 
far as the Cancer Hospital.” 

“In a butcher’s cart!” (lifting up 
hands and eyes). “This will be a fine 
story for the girls; I am afraid they will 
never let you hear the last of it. I won- 
der ” — in a tone of quickened interest — 
“ was it our butcher? You did not hap- 
pen to notice the name on the cart, did 
you? ” 

“I never thought of looking,” replies 
Joan, still struggling with a most pain- 
ful inclination to laugh violently and cry 
violently at the same moment. “I do 
not think that he could have been yours, 
though; he did not seem to know you 
when I mentioned your name.” 

“ In a butcher’s cart!” repeats Mrs. 
Moberley, still chuckling with fat relish ; 
“i^^was lucky it was night, was not it? 
peO^)e would have Stared to see a stylish 
girl like you perched up in a butcher’s 
cart, would not they ? ” 

All this time they have been in the 
passage ; ls?ut now Mrs. Moberley puts her 


JOAN. 


19 


arm round her niece — first giving her 
several hearty kisses — and begins to lead 
her toward the interior of the bower. 
But the passage is narrow ; and, on peril 
of becoming wedged between the walls, 
they have to part company and enter the 
drawing-room in single file. 

Joan had thought that her heart was 
already so low down that it would be im- 
possible to abase it any farther, but the 
sight of the drawing-room undeceives 
her. It is not that it is shabby, though 
it is that too in a very high degree, but 
there are many worse things in this world 
than shabbiness. It is the air of slipshod 
finery about it which so utterly capsizes 
the poor remnant of Joan’s spirits. A 
white paper, freely starred with large 
(once gold) heavenly bodies ; many orna- 
ments of a shelly, sparry nature, inex- 
pensively florid ; an impression of much 
cheap pink ribbon and gobble-stitch lace ; 
and — though the month is wealthy April 
— not a flower, with the exception of a 
giant bunch of artificial ones under a glass 
shade. 

“ This is the drawing-room ! ” says 
Mrs. Moberley, introducing it with an air 
of pleased proprietorship ; “ we have not 
laid out much money upon it, for the ex- 
cellent reason that we have not had much 
to lay — ha 1 ha ! but the girls have man- 
aged to make it look pretty smart too, 
have not they ? ” 

“ They have indeed,” replies Joan, em- 
phatically, looking round with rather a 
moonstruck air, and taking in many de- 
tails of wool, of beads, of red Bohemian 
glass, which at the first coup-d'c&il had 
escaped her notice. 

“In a butcher’s cart,” repeats Mrs. 
Moberley, again resuming her chuckle, 
and sinking down into a chair in order the 
more luxuriously to enjoy it; “it really 
is the richest thing I ever heard! The 
girls meant to have gone and met you 
to-day — they had put their hats on, on 
purpose — when — who should come in 
but Micky — Micky Brand, you know; 
or, rather, of course you do not know, 


and whisked them off to tea at the Bar- 
racks 1 ” 

“Yes?” 

Her eyes have strayed to the dogs, 
who, now silent, and consenting to her 
adoption into the family, are sitting all 
six in a row, very close together before 
the low fire, and, occasionally overcome 
by sleep, falling against each other. 

“ He — would — not — take ‘ no,’ ” con- 
tinues Mrs. Moberley, slowly; “he is so 
droll, is Micky; a vast deal of dry humor 
about him! I am sure that you and he 
will get on like a house on fire : I can see 
that you are just the sort of girl he will 
take to at once.” 

“Am I? ” (with a sickly little smile). 

Joan is angry with herself for being 
so monosyllabic, but her tongue refuses 
to frame any words longer than “ yes ” 
or “ no.” There is one monosyllabic 
word, indeed, which her whole soul is 
crying aloud, but her lips do not venture 
to utter it, and that word is “tea! ” 

“ He is in the 170th, you know,” pur- 
sues Mrs. Moberley, warming with her 
theme. “ I did not mention to you in my 
letter that Helmsley was a garrison-town ; 
I thought it would be a little surprise for 
you! ” She is looking at her with such 
an air of good-natured expectancy, as she 
makes this exciting revelation, thair Joan 
is really and honestly sorry that she can- 
not look more exhilarated by it. “A 
regiment is the making of a country 
place, is not it? ” continues her aunt, 
complacently ; “ and these are a very 
dashing set of fellows, they keep us all 
alive ! ” 

Joan is saved from the necessity of 
answering a question to which she feels 
so incapable of making a satisfactory re- 
sponse, by the behavior of the dogs, who, 
in a moment, are all awake, and on their 
legs ; barking again with hardly less vio- 
lent unanimity than that with which they 
greeted Miss Dering. 

“ Hold your tongues, dogs ! ” cries 
Mrs. Moberley ; “ hold your tongue, Mr. 
Brown! you are always the ringleader ! ” 


20 


JOxVN. • 


But small heed pays Mr. Brown. With 
one flying leap he is out of the window, 
followed by his flve brothers and sisters ; 
and all are barking their hearts out at 
their ease in the starlight. “It is the 
girls! ” explains Mrs. Moberley; “and,” 
with a look of pleased alertness, “ I think 
I hear a man’s voice too, do not you? I 
believe it is Micky ; he said he should 
very likely come to make his bow to you, 
but I took it for a joke.” 

By this time the dogs’ clamor is hushed. 
They are evidently apologizing for their 
mistake. 

“Do not go yet! ” cries a high, young 
voice outside; “it is quite early! come 
in and have some brandy and soda- 
water ! ” 

“ Do not ofiFer what you have not got,” 
cries Mrs. Moberley, raising her voice, 
and laughingly calling through the win- 
dow; “there is no soda-water in the 
house ! ” 

“I modify my invitation, then,” re- 
plies the young voice; “come in and 
have some brandy without the soda- 
water ! ” (laughing also). 

But this Bacchanalian offer is appar- 
ently declined ; for, after a few seconds 
of further parley, carried on in too low a 
key to be overheard, the Miss Moberleys 
enter the house and the room alone. 

“What have you done with Micky? ” 
cries their mother, eagerly. “Why did 
not you bring him in ? ” 

“ He would not come,” replies one of 
the girls ; “he said he had not time ; but 
we think that it was because he had his 
mess-jacket on; he knows that it is not 
becoming! ” 

“Evidently anxious to make a good 
impression at first sight! ” says Mrs. Mo- 
berley, and they all laugh— all but Joan. 

Mirth is indeed far from Miss De- 
ring’s thoughts. At the present moment 
she is occupied in gazing at her two first- 
cousins with hardly less intensity than 
that which marked her first view of their 
mother. And yet they are of no uncom- 
mon type. Had she seen them ofiiciating 


in the Helmsley refreshment - room, or 
behind the counter at the fancy repository 
in the little town near Dering, she would 
have passed them without an observation. 
It is as first-cousins — Tier flrst-cousins — 
that they strike her as so astounding. 
First-cousins! in such hats! such jack- 
ets! such ear-rings! such beads! and 
with such a trolloping length of uncurled 
curls down their backs ! Had you told 
her that Mr. Brown and Algy were her 
flrst cousins, it would have seemed to her 
less surprising. 

“ I dare say you do not know which is 
which ! ” says Mrs. Moberley, following 
the direction of her niece’s eyes, and re- 
garding her progeny with a contained 
pride. “ I dare say you are trying to 
make out which is Bell, and which is Di, 
without my telling you. Do you see 
much likeness between them ? ” she goes 
on a moment later, as Joan still maintains 
a stupefled silence ; “ some say they might 
be twins, others do not see it. I sup- 
pose ” — with a good-natured glance round 
the room, comprehensively inclusive — “ I 
suppose there is a family look among us 
all.” 

“We are not at all alike really,” cries 
the younger, least beaded, least vivid- 
looking of the two girls, in an anxious 
voice ; “ if we seem so at flrst, it goes off 
after a while.” 

“I am sorry we were not back in 
time to receive you,” says the other, sit- 
ting down and taking off her hat. “ Di- 
ana and I meant to have gone to meet 
you; we were just setting off, when — 
mother has told you ? — he came on pur- 
pose — ^he gave us no peace ! ” 

“ I dare say you were very glad,” says 
Diana, bluntly. “ We should have crowded 
you up ; I dare say that there was not 
more than enough room for you and your 
boxes in the fly ? ” 

“The fly, indeed!” cries Mrs. Mo- 
berley, beginning to laugh again, “ a fine 
fly ! — It is evident that they are not in 
the secret. Is not it, Joan? ” 

At the sound of her own Christian 


JOAN". 


21 


name (and after all what else is her own 
aunt likely to call her?) Joan gives a 
slight and involuntary shudder, but it 
passes harmless and unobserved amid the 
fire of question, answer, ejaculation, and 
retort, that now ensues. 

“You must have passed us on the 
road,” says Bell, presently. “Did you 
notice? we were walking two and two; 
Diana and Micky in front, and I and an- 
other officer behind : we did not see you, 
but then ” — ^laughing affectedly — “ you 
were in the very last place where we 
should ever have thought of looking for 
you.” 

“ Did it j'olt very badly? ” asks Diana, 
fixing upon her cousin’s small wan face a 
pair of honest and very well-opened eyes, 
filled with compassionate inquiry ; “ worse 
than a ’bus ? were you much shaken ? you 
look so tired ! ” The genuine, rough pity 
of her tone goes nigher to upsetting Miss 
Dering than all her former discomfitures. 
The tears rush to her eyes. 

“ It has been a long day,” she says, 
faltering ; “ I set off early.” 

“ And have you had nothing to eat ? ” 
cries Diana, turning her quick eyes round 
the room, in search of those signs of con- 
viviality which are conspicuous by their 
absence; “ no tea ? nothing ? ” Then, as 
Joan observes an embarrassed silence, she 
goes on — her healthy cheeks flushing a 
little — “ Ther0 is never much to eat or 
drink in this house, and what there is is 
not at all appetizing, but at least we can 
give you some tea.” 

So saying, she hastily leaves the room. 
It is some time — to Joan it seems a very 
long time — before she returns. At length, 
however, she reappears, bearing in her 
hands a tray, and with a face so very 
much heightened and deepened in tint as 
sufficiently proves that she herself has 
been the cook. 

“ The servants had gone to bed,” she 
says, apologetically; “ the fire was nearly 
out, and the kettle would not boil. Oome, 
Joan” — eying rather ruefully the sorry 
fare — “ I am sorry that there is nothing 


more inviting, but it is the best we 
have.” 

Joan obeys, nothing loath. The tea 
is very weak and rather smoky, and it is 
clear that one need go no farther than an 
English hedge for its original home ; the 
bread is very stale, and the butter very 
salt, but, to a person who within the last 
twenty-four hours has refreshed herself 
with but one cup of coffee and one bun, 
few drinks do not seem to be nectar, few 
viands do not taste succulently. 

It is a long, long while after Miss De- 
ring has come to the end of her meagre 
refreshment, before the idea of going to 
bed presents itself to the minds of Mrs. 
Moberley or her daughters. At last, at 
last — a very Idng last — and when Joan 
can no longer hinder her tired head from 
sinking forward on her breast in uncom- 
fortable jerky slumber, there comes a lull 
— a talk of going to bed, a dawdling, chat- 
tering preparation for carrying the idea 
into execution, and lastly a lighting of 
candles. 

“ Good-night, Joan,” says her aunt, 
holding both her hands and looking at 
her with good-natured eyes, which evi- 
dently once were large, but which now, 
through the dishonest usurpation of her 
cheeks of territory not belonging to them, 
are decidedly small. “I hope we shall 
see some more red in these cheeks to- 
morrow. Your mother used to have such 
a fine color, quite as high as Bell’s, if not 
higher ; often and often people have 
asked me if she were not painted.” A 
moment later : “ Do not trouble to get up 
to breakfast to-morrow, child — we often 
do not; we never have any particular 
breakfast-hour — only just as any of us 
feel inclined. This is Liberty Hall, my 
dear. Liberty Hall.” So saying, she looses 
her niece’s little chill hands, and, nodding 
her head several times, disappears into her 
bower, while Joan, escorted by her two 
cousins, drags her weary legs up the nar- 
row deal staircase of “Liberty Hall.” 

“ This is your room,” says Diana, 
throwing open a door and waving her flat 


22 


JOAN. 


candlestick about, so as to exhibit its di- 
mensions, “ the guest-chamber of Liberty 
Eall^"' with a little sarcastic mimicking 
of her mother’s tone. “I will not say 
that I hope you will find it comfortable, 
because I know you will not.” 

“ There is a bed,” answers Joan, with 
a small smile of utter weariness ; “ that 
seems to me the only thing of the least 
importance justmow.” 

But, if she imagines that this broad 
hint will rid her of the company of her 
relations, she is greatly mistaken. Diana 
sets down the candle, and Arabella seats 
herself upon a cane-bottomed chair. To 
hide her disappointjnent Joan walks to 
the window. 

“You have the best vietv in the house,” 
says Arabella, complacently; “you can 
see everything that goes along the road 
better even than from the drawing - 
room.” 

But it is air, not view, that Miss Be- 
ring craves. The room feels close and con- 
fined. She throws up the sash, which in- 
stantly and clamorously falls down again. 

“ It always does that,” says Arabella, 
composedly ; “ there has been something 
odd about it for months. It keeps open 
pretty well with a bit of wood ; there gen- 
erally is a bit of wood, but of course Sa- 
rah has lost it.” 

She sets the candlestick on the fioor 
as she speaks, and all three girls grovel 
on all-fours on the carpet in search of the 
missing wedge. By-and-by Diana finds it 
under the washhand-stand, and with it the 
decrepit window is propped open to ad- 
mit the gentle April winds. 

“I know you are longing for us to 
go,” says Diana, brusquely, when this 
feat is accomplished. — “ Come along, Bell, 
come ! it is cruelty to animals to keep her 
out of bed. — Of course we will send our 
maid to dress your hair in the morning ; 
she has not at all a bad idea of hair-dress- 
ing, though indeed we taught her every- 
thing she knows ; she always does ours ! ” 

Joan looks at the colossal heads before 
her, and shudders. “ Thank you,” she 


answers, rather hastily, “ but indeed I 
have got quite into the habit of doing my 
own ; I like it ; it makes one feel so in- 
dependent ; good-night ! ” 

Are they really going now ? It seems 
so. Arabella is already out of the room, 
and Diana is at the door, when — oh, sor- 
row ! — she returns. 

“ I hope you do not mind the light in 
your eyes in the morning,” she says, look- 
ing up at the window; “unfortunately 
there is no blind, and the curtains do not 
draw very well, I am afraid ; there is 
something the matter with the rings ; but 
if you pin them over it does nearly as well. 
Have you got some good big ‘ corking- 
pins ? ’ because, if not, I will run and get 
you some.” 

Eegardless whether she is speaking 
truth or fiction, Joan asseverates that she 
has plenty of corking-pins. There is no 
commodity, however improbable, with 
which she would not declare herself to 
be richly provided, in order to obtain the 
one boon for which her whole sad, tired 
soul craves — solitude. 

Gone at last — really gone I And now 
she may sigh as loudly as she likes, and 
look round her with as undisguised dis- 
approbation on her surroundings as they 
naturally inspire. "When one is at a very 
low ebb, physically, it takes but a little 
to overset one. Joan, at her best and 
strongest — the real Joan — would be 
ashamed to let any sordid entourage make 
her cry ; but she is tired and below par, 
and tears of forlorn discomfiture fill her 
eyes, as she looks round on the thread- 
bare carpet — on the large and straggly 
ugliness of the wall-paper, and notices 
that a ‘bit is missing from the spout of 
the ewer. 

She stands before the chest of drawers 
that serves as dressing-table, and looks at 
herself in the glass that is upon it. “I 
shall grow like them in time,” she says, 
shuddering ; “ in time I shall learn to talk 
of men by their surnames, and to have a 
refreshment-room head of hair ! ” She 
pulls her hair down on her forehead to 


JOAN. 


23 


simulate a fringe, sets her hat at the back 
of her head, and tries to look like them ; 
then, in a paroxysm of disgust, dashes the 
locks away from her brows and tosses her 
hat down. “ No ! I hope I may die first.” 

She says this aloud, and with such em- 
phasis that her voice drowns the sound of 
a small knock that comes at the door. It 
lias to be repeated before she hears it; 
then she hastily pulls her countenance 
into shape again, and cries, “ Come in.” 
(Here they are, back again.) 

It is not “ they,” however. It is only 
Diana, looking rather shy. You would 
have said, half an hour ago, that a girl in 
such a hat, and with two such curls, could 
not look shy, but yet she does. 

“ I have not come for anything par- 
ticular,” she says, speaking very fast and 
confusedly ; “ it was only that it struck 
me just now that we had none of us said 
that we were glad to see you ; we have 
none of us any manners. I dare say that 
you have found that out already — but we 
are glad — that is all! I will not come 
back again.” 

While making this speech she is red- 
der than any July field-poppy, and redder 
still when, having given Joan a quick and 
shamefaced kiss, she flies out of the room 
again, banging the creaky door after her, 
and leaving Joan remorseful. And J oan’s 
last thought before she closes her fagged 
eyes in her little, hard, lumpy bed, which 
feels as if it were stuffed with good-sized 
potatoes, is not of her spoutless jug or 
propped window, of all she has lost and 
all she is going to suffer — but of the kind 
and rosy face of her little underbred 
cousin. 

Joan is not very old, but she has al- 
ready learned this, that — whether ill- 
dressed, or well-dressed, whether well- 
bred, or ill-bred — love is the one thing 
very much worth having in this world. 
If they will love her, she will forgive them 
everything — even the size of their heads, 
and their taste for soldiers. 


CHAPTER Y. 

When one is twenty years old — when 
one’s heart is as full of sadness and tired- 
ness as it can well hold — when one has 
traveled many hours at a stretch in a noisy 
train — then one is pretty certain to sleep 
deeply and sweetly, even though one’s 
mattress be copiously stuffed with cobble- 
stones, even though one’s head be too low 
and one’s feet too high, and one’s bed 
altogether so surprisingly narrow as to 
require very judicious and quiet lying in, 
to hinder one from bodily falling out. 
Often, in her ocean of down in the green- 
hung room at Dering, has she slept less 
completely. Pulses quickly beating to 
the tune of some past excitement, or 
coming pleasure, have often made her 
toss and turn and look eagerly window- 
ward for the waving of morning’s gray 
flag ; but now there is neither excitement 
behind, nor pleasure ahead, and the 
slower morning comes the better ; and so 
she sleeps. 

God is good, and does not even send 
her a dream. If it came it would surely 
be a dream of better things and better 
days, and so it is well away. Not even 
the unnatural elevation of her feet by the 
capriciously-stuffed mattress, nor the de- 
pression of her head by the little, meagre^ 
featherless pillow, succeeds in giving her 
a nightmare. She might have been still 
asleep now had not it been for the ineffi- 
ciency of the curtain-rings, of which Diana 
overnight had warned her. The cork- 
ing-pin had indeed drawn the skimped 
curtains together somewhere about their 
middle ; but up above there is a vacuum 
through which a wave of morning light 
rolls and washes under her eyelids. She 
turns sleepily over on the other side, but 
even then the wave reaches her, and so 
does the vigorous melody of a thrush- 
voice sweetly rebuking her sloth : 


24 


JOAN. 


“ Good-morrow ! good-morrow ! tlie sun was 
awake 1 

Long ago in the blue summer skies ; 

Birds in the brake 
Carol sweet for your sake ! 

O lady fair, arise 1 
That mom fresh grace may borrow 

From your dear eyes.” 

He says all this so loudly that the 
sleepy lady has to listen to him. She 
turns over once or twice again, nearly 
tumbling out of her strait couch as she 
does it. But it is useless ; both glorious 
light and happy bird combine to forbid 
further rest. The bird, indeed, sings 
another verse : 

“ Good-morrow 1 good-morrow ! 

So whispers the breeze. 

O’er the lake as it flutters and sighs ; 

So murmur the bees from the scented lime- 
trees ; 

0 lady fair arise. 

Arise and give good-morrow ! 

The dearest of replies.” 

So in despair she sits up, rubs her blue 
eyes like a child with her knuckles, and 
looks round. It is a well-known fact 
that rude and outspoken daylight tells 
many hometruths about things that po- 
liter candle-light either slurs over or is 
civilly silent upon. If Joan’s new room 
had looked unhandsome overnight by the 
light of one composite candle, it certainly 
does not look more lovesome now that 
day’s strong lamp is held up to its short- 
comings. It would take a great effort of 
memory on the part of its owners, a great 
flight of imagination on the part of Joan, 
to reconstruct the pattern of the carpet ; 
so utterly has it disappeared under the 
tread of the numberless feet that have 
evidently walked upon it. Of paint on 
door and wainscot there is so little as to 
be hardly worth naming ; there is a zig- 
zag crack across the looking-glass inter- 
fering with one’s view of one’s nose ; ^nd 
the piece missing from the water-jug spout 
is larger than it appeared overnight. It 
is now seen to amount to the loss of al- 
most the whole spout. « But eight hours 


of sleep have put new strength and cour- 
age into Joan. Not even the squalor of 
having a jug without a spout can make 
her cry ; she feels as strong and as bright 
as the new day. She jumps out of bed, 
and runs on bare, light feet to the window. 
She unfastens the curtain, carefully lay- 
ing aside the friendly corking-pin wdth a 
thrifty instinct born of her new circum- 
stances. Most likely there is not another 
in the household. There is no blind, as 
you know, to draw up ; so at once she 
stands face to face with the morning. It 
is not early dawn, as she sees at once ; it 
is dawn’s elder brother. The sun is al- 
ready pretty high; she looks up at him 
fondly, though he rewards her by making 
the water pour down her cheeks. He 
and the moon are the only two old friends 
that are left her. Then she looks out curi- 
ously at the prospect. There is the gate 
at which her tired fingers fumbled last 
night; there is the little mean sweep up 
which the execrations of the dogs accom- 
panied her. Three of them are standing 
at the present moment watchfully on the 
lookout for some passer-by to pounce out 
on and insult. A shabby grass-plot, with 
a bed of ill-to-do shrubs, long-legged lau- 
rels, and cypress abortions in the middle ; 
then the road. A cart full of manure is 
passing glong it. Bell was right; there 
is an excellent view of it. She puts her 
head fq^ther out to extend her view. On 
the right the three little brother villas. 
People get up in them earlier, apparently, 
than they do here. A woman is standing 
at the door of our next-door neighbor 
shaking a hearth-rug ; beyond, again, the 
great, unsightly hospital ; larger, unsiglit- 
lier than ever by daylight. She shudders. 
How cduld any one have built his dwell- 
ing so near that temple of pain and un- 
clejHsness ? She looks away quickly, and 
turns her eyes toward the left. 

"What a contrast! On one hand, dis- 
ease, anguish, ugly death. On the other, 
life that seems unending : beauty without 
peer ; joy and mirth unrivaled. A great 
plain of most shining silver, laughing in 


JOAN. 


25 


the morning’s eyes— the sea! The sea 
makes some people bilious : to other peo- 
ple its immortal restlessness gives the 
blues. But neither bile nor blues inter- 
fere with Joan’s utter love for it. It is 
her own familiar friend. She stretches 
out her arms toward it, and laughs aloud 
in joyful greeting. 

After all, there may be pleasant things 
yet ahead in life. Whether or not any one 
else in the house is up, she, at least, can 
no longer waste time in bed. Instinct 
tells her that in this establishment it will 
be useless to make any efforts toward the 
obtaining of hot water. Bather to her 
surprise, however, and much to her relief, 
she finds a great jug of cold; a jug with 
a spout, but (to hinder it from exalting 
itself too much above its brother, on this 
score) without a handle. Having washed 
and dresssed ; having brushed her dusty 
gown with the awkwardness engendered 
by utter want of practice ; having plaited 
her smooth hair and instinctively tried to 
make her head look even smaller than 
usual, she puts on her hat, opens her 
paintless door, and slips quicklj and 
quietly down-stairs. Not a soul to be 
seen ! not a sound to be heard ! 

As she reaches the bottom of the 
stairs, a great, slow-speaking clock from 
the hospital strikes eight. Clearly they 
do not rise with the lark at Portland Vil- 
la. She goes into the drawing-room — a 
tawdry desolation! It is exactly as it 
was left overnight ; furniture higgledy- 
piggledy; chair-covers rucked; antima- 
cassars awry. 

The sun-shafts are smiting, with bright 
rebuke, the dead- white ashes in the dreary 
fireplace. It is a disagreeable sight, and 
Joan hastens away from it. She goes to 
the hall-door and tries it: it is locked, 
and not all her efforts can turn the key. 
There is, however, a door at the back, 
which is not only unlocked, but ajar. It 
has clearly been open all night. 

In the happy consciousness of having 
nothing worth stealing, the Moberley fam- 
ily is able to throw its portals hospitably 


wide to any passing burglar. No doubt 
there was neither lock nor bolt on Dio- 
genes’s tub. She walks out into the little 
garden: a morsel of flower-border first, 
then a strip of kitchen-garden in all the 
amiability of unpruned raspberry-bushes, 
ragged apple-trees, triumphant groundsel. 

Our next-door neighbor has turned his 
garden into a drying-ground : in the morn- 
ing wind his clothes are flapping and 
dancing. By a careful survey of them, 
you may tell approximately the age, sex, 
and number, of his belongings. Prom 
these a clean and soapy smell is wafted 
over the hedge to Joan’s nostrils. It does 
not take her long to make the circuit of 
the domain. In five minutes she is back 
in the flower-garden again. It is as if the 
drawing-room had walked out-of-doors. 
There is the same sordid, meagre disorder ; 
weedy gravel- walks, long-unmown, rank 
grass, an old laurel-tree, into which, ap- 
parently — (it having a forked branch) — 
every odd-come-short that the family has 
not known where else to deposit through 
a long series of years, has been put — a 
scythe, several broken pots, a wooden 
box, a broken-backed book, a discolored 
torn neckerchief, an old pair of gloves. 
If Joan look long and closely enough, no 
doubt she will discover among the miscel- 
laneous contents the missing spout of her 

The garden has evidently once formed 
part of a better, larger one, belonging to 
an elder house, which has no doubt been 
knocked down to make way for this little 
smug band of pretentious bald hovels, for 
an ancient sundial stands neglected — in its 
air of out-at-elbows gentility — on the 
grass-plot. But, amid all the ugliness and 
squalidness, there is beauty too. Spring 
is so generous — April so open-handed — 
that they will not pass by even Portland 
YiUa. They have given it a pear-tree, all 
in bridal white ; one load of thick blos- 
som-bunches, you could hardly put a pin 
between them; they have given it also 
groups of vigorous daffodils, clumps of 
polyanthus, smelling of spring ; milk- 


26 


JOAN. 


white arabis liaunted by the drowsy, 
booming bees. Joan smells all the flow- 
ers ; mounts on the base of the sundial ; 
traces with her finger the trite, sad sen- 
tence on its discolored face, “Tempus fu- 
git.” Tiny lichens, disapproving of the 
truism, are filling up the letters. 

Then she returns to the laurel- tree, 
and looks carefully and hopefully for the 
spout of her jug, but it is not there. Still 
nothing happens : no one is either seen or 
heard. All the other houses are up and 
dressed. The scions of Campidoglio Villa 
are playing in the garden; the wife of 
Sardanapalus Villa is feeding her chick- 
ens; only Portland Villa still slumbers 
and sleeps. In despair she returns to the 
house ; opens all the doors in succession 
as loudly as she can ; makes her feet tread 
as noisily as they are able on the oil-cloth. 
It is no use : nobody wakes. She passes 
down the little sweep to the gate ; says 
something polite and suitable to each of 
the dogs, who all receive her with an ex- 
travagant and overdone civility; passes 
out into the road with all six at her heels, 
and saunters toward the sea. Toward, 
but not to. 

Her friend is farther off than she had 
thought. From her window it had seemed 
as if by stretching out her hands she 
might with her finger-tips have touched 
the great, glancing silver shield. But the 
nearer she approaches to it, the more its 
white glory seems to recede. She feels 
its cool and bracing breath upon her face, 
but itself she does not reach. 

Whether it is the sea-air, or the skimped 
supper overnight, or only the healthy 
working order in which her young organs 
are, but she suddenly becomes aware of 
being inexpressibly hungry, and, after 
having walked half a mile or so, turns 
back in the hope of at length finding the 
household aroused. 

* As she reaches the gate again the hos- 
pital clock beats the light air with nine 
loud, deliberate strokes. They must be 
up by now. Yes, it is clear that in the 
interval of her absence some one has risen, 


though no one is visible, for the hall-door 
is unlocked ; but on peeping into the din- 
ing-room she is dispirited at seeing no 
smallest sign of coming breakfast ; only a 
depressingly dingy baize table-cloth, and a 
general impression of crumbs. She goes 
out again into the garden, and tries to 
recollect when, at what distant epoch of 
her life, she ever felt so hungry before. 
Oh, if the daffodils and the polyanthuses 
were but eatable ! 

As she wanders disconsolately about 
she hears after a while a window thrown 
up. Diana, slightly dressed in night-at- 
tire, looks sleepily out. Can it be called 
Diana? — Diana without any of her dis- 
tinguishing features; Diana without her 
;sausage frisettes, without her piled false 
hair, without the plumed and flowered 
abomination of her hat ! Diana, as God 
made her ; not as Helmsley fashions, as 
• trolloping curls, as cheap, loud clothes — 
as, in short, the desire to shine in the 
eyes of the l 70 th, have made her ! . 

It would never have struck Joan as 
possible overnight that Diana could be a 
pretty girl. It comes upon her now with 
the force of a surprise that she is one. A 
little curly head; young dewy eyes full of 
color and light; pinky cheeks; red lips 
made for kisses and laughter. The beauty 
of a little dairy-maid indeed, but still 
beauty. It is difficult to look vulgar when 
one is very young, not inordinately fat, 
and when one has done nothing disfigur- 
ing to one’s self. In her night-gown, with 
her blowzed hair tumbling into her sleepy 
eyes, Diana is not vulgar. 

“You out!” she cries, in a drowsy 
voice, wherein surprise struggles with de- 
parting slumber. “ Why on earth did you 
get up so early ? is not the day long enough 
in all conscience ? ” 

“ I never can sleep after eight o’clock,” 
answers Joan, half apologetically; “and 
there is no use in staying in bed when one 
is wide awake, is there ? ” 

“I do not know” (indistinctly, with a 
yawn). “ I think it is better than being 
up, when there is nothing to do.” 


JOAN. 


27 


A pause. Diana leans her arms on the 
sill, and looks aimlessly out at the wake- 
ful flowers and the preoccupied bees. 

“ Is your sis — ^is Arabella up ? ” asks 
Joan, with a small, vain hope that one of 
the household may be up and stirring. 

Diana laughs, showing many neat lit- 
tle white teeth. 

“Up! she is not awake! — Bell!” 
(turning toward the inside of the room, 
and raising her voice), “Joan wants to 
know are you up yet? Joan is up and 
dressed, and out ; you must get up ! it is 
your week for making tea! if you do not 
get up, I shall come and shake you ! ” 

But not even this threat has any ef- 
. feet. Diana turns again to the window, 
replaces her arms on the sill, and shaking* 
her head : 

‘’Tis the voice of the sluggard; I heard her 
complain. 

You have waked me too soon ; let me slum- 
ber again ’ — 

she says, with a laugh ; “ she will not be 
down for a couple of hours.” 

“Nor you either?” says Joan, with a 
sinking heart; “do you mean to go to 
bed again too ? ” 

“I did,” answers Diana, lazily, twist- 
ing one lock of her rough hair round her 
Anger; “but I will not now, if you had 
rather that I did not. Have you any idea 
what time it is ? ” 

“It must be a quarter-past nine.” 

“Is that all?” (extending her arms, 
throwing back her head, and opening her 
mouth in a gigantic stretch and yawn). 
“ I hoped that it was ten, at least ; I al- 
ways think that there are just twice too 
many hours in the day, do not you? un- 
less the band plays, or something is going 
on up at the barracks ; but ” (with a heavy 
sigh) “ to-day there is nothing — positive- 
ly nothing!” Joail is silent. To be a 
whole day without soldiers is to her a 
new form of suffering, and one for which 
in all her pharmacy there is no remedy. 
“But to bo sure your boxes will come 
to-day,” continues Diana with a livelier 


air, rousing herself from the pensive 
strain of thought into which she has fall- 
en ; “ that will give us something to do ; 
it will take a long time, no doubt, to ex- 
amine all your things.” 

Joan swallows a sigh, and strangles a 
shudder. 

“I dare say it will! ” 

“Maybe they will be here quite early,” 
resumes the girl, now thoroughly awak- 
ened; “ then I will dress at once ; I do not 
take long when once I set about it ; Bell 
says twenty minutes — I say a quarter of 
an hour; and you know it does not mat- 
ter how untidy I am to-day, as no one 
will see me.” 

Joan shudders outright this time, and 
does not try to strangle it, as Miss Diana 
thus makes herself the naive exponent of 
this doctrine of home slatternliness and 
out-door finery. 

“You did not see any sign of break- 
fast, I suppose,” says Diana, presently; 
happily unconscious of the effect her 
words have produced ; “nothing laid ? ” 

“Nothing!” 

“I thought not; there never is; go 
into the dining-room and ring for break- 
fast ; go on ringing tiU she comes ! ” 

Joan obeys with alacrity. The hope 
of food, however distant, gives wings to 
her feet. The dining-room bell is broken. 
The rope is lying curled like a shabby 
snake on the floor. Not liking to take 
any further measures without directions, 
she returns to the garden to announce to 
her cousin her ill success. 

She finds her still yawning at the 
morning sun and the flowers in exceed- 
ing dishabille. 

“Broken, is it? — oh, so it is! Billy 
Jackson did it on Wednesday, when two 
of them came to luncheon here. Then 
go to the swing-door and call ! go on call- 
ing till she answers ! she very often pre- 
tends not to hear.” 

Joan does as she is bid, and repairs 
to the indicated swing-door, where she 
stands and calls “Sarah! ” several times 
without any apparent result. She hears 


28 


JOAN. 


indeed tlie sound of voices in colloquy or 
altercation in some not distant region, 
but answer comes there none. 

The Moberley parlor-maid has evi- 
dently laid to heart Swift’s “Directions 
to Servants,” and especially this one: 
“Never come till you have been called 
three or four times, for none but dogs 
will come at the first whistle, and when 
the master calls ‘ Who’s there ? ’ nobody 
is bound to come, for ‘ Who’s there ? ’ is 
nobody’s name.” 

But, at length, one last, despairing cry, 
hunger-prompted, and uttered in a louder 
key than Joan has ever expected to hear 
herself employ, evokes a spirit from the 
kitchen. A pert-faced, black-handed 
young creature, with a disordered coif- 
fure nearly as big as her mistresses’, an- 
swers the oft-repeated summons, and 
having received with a sulky surprise 
Joan’s request for speedy breakfast, mild- 
ly yet firmly preferred, retires a good 
deal more quickly than she came. 


CHAPTEPw VI. 

The family is assembled at length, 
Di having successfully removed or con- 
cealed nearly all traces of the beauty 
that God has given her. She has, indeed, 
been unable to do away with her eyes, 
or make them look as underbred as the 
rest of her. They still shine and laugh 
out of her disfigured face. She has, how- 
ever, violet-powdered her fresh cheeks, 
piled her hair to more than its pristine 
height and bulk, and trailed her spurious 
curls to even greater length than on the 
previous evening. The dew has apparent- 
ly taken every morsel of curl out of 
them ; and, as she is pretty sure to see no 
one to-day, Diana has not thought it 
worth while to recurl them. 

They therefore wander in perfectly 
straight and lustreless disorder down her 
back. Nor has her sister had less pros- 
perity in the task of self-disfigurement. 


Her labor has indeed been less, as she 
has had less original beauty to spoil. 

Daylight is no kinder to Mrs. Mober- 
ley than it has already been to her fur- 
niture and her daughters. She looks, if 
possible, fatter and hotter than ever ; nor 
do the starting seams of her morning- 
gown, nor the easy negligence with which 
her cap sits crookedly upon her head, 
greatly enhance the attractiveness of her 
appearance. It is only a Lifeguardsman 
to whom it is becoming to have his cap 
set on awry. 

She has been holding Joan’s most re- 
luctant hand for full five minutes, and 
staring intently with a fat pathos into 
her face, as she tries to dig out from, 
•among her features a resemblance to 
some member, alive or dead, of her own 
family. She is interrupted in her hope- 
less search by Diana, who strikes in 
brusquely : 

“ By-the-by, did the bed fall down 
with you last night? I forgot to ask 
you : it does sometimes ; it did once with 
me. I think its legs are weak; I was so 
frightened ; I thought it was the Last 
Day; that was why we put it in the 
spare-room.” 

“ Nonsense, Di ! ” cries Mrs. Mober- 
ley, peevishly ; “do not frighten the 
girl! — Perhaps” (turning to Joan) “it 
might not bear a very heavy person — I 
dare say that it would not ; but it will 
never break down with such a light 
weight as you.” 

“ I should not think that she was 
much lighter than I am,” says Diana, 
contradictiously, measuring Joan with an 
appraising eye, “for, though of course 
she is much slighter, she is twice as tall, 
and it comes to the same thing — hurrah I 
there is breakfast at last I I hear Sarah 
clattering the plates.” 

Joan is very thaoLful for any diver- 
sion which removes six eyes from her 
person, and doubly thankful that the di- 
version should be in the shape of food. 
A move is made toward the dining-room, 
which is just across the narrow passage. 


JOAN. 


29 


As she steps over the threshold, Bell 
cries out in a warning voice : 

“ Take care, Joan 1 the big hole in the 
carpet is just there ; it very nearly tripped 
up Micky last Christmas-day.” 

J oan starts, stumbles, and by catching 
at the door-post recovers herself. 

“ If it is of such long standing,” she 
says, with an astonished laugh, “why 
does not some one mend it ? ” 

“ Oh, I do not know,” replies the girl, 
indifferently. “ I suppose that Sarah has 
no time ; and, after all, it does no great 
harm when one remembers where it is ; 
and the dogs like it.” 

Such reasoning is unanswerable, as 
J oan feels ; and so she takes her seat in 
silence at the social board. Before she 
had entered the room, Joan had credited 
herself with an appetite to which any 
food short of tripe or haggis would be 
welcome. She had said to herself reas- 
suringly that they are not likely to have 
tripe for breakfast. She had pictured 
herself as pasturing with relish on all 
manner of plain and homely food, thick 
bread-and-scrape, porridge, perhaps trea- 
cle. Yes, she would not despise even 
treacle. But the first glance that she 
casts on the table arrangements robs her 
at once of half her appetite — a rumpled 
table-cloth, rich in yesterday’s stains ; 
a dull teapot ; dim spoons ; cups all 
cracked more or less, mostly more ; and 
not a flower I Not one of all the thou- 
sand primroses that are palely smiling 
from every hedge-row ! Treacle ! por- 
ridge ! Who could eat treacle or porridge 
on such a table-cloth ? 

Her meditations are interrupted by 
the sound of the two girls’ voices, raised 
in recriminatory dialogue. They are 
wrangling as to who shall make the tea, 
or rather who shall not make it, for it is 
clearly an unpopular office. 

After a few moments of argument of 
“ you-are-another ” nature, during which 
no approach is apparently made to a 
decision, Joan’s soft voice strikes in, 
or rather steals in, between the shrill 


sharpness of those of the two com- 
batants : 

“ If you like I will make tea ; I am 
considered ” (with a faint smile) “ rather 
a good tea-maker ; I always used to make 
it at — at — Bering.” 

As she speaks, the breakfast-room at 
Bering rises before her mind’s eye : the 
breakfast - table in all the loveliness of 
spotless cleanliness, brilliantly - polished 
old silver, and airy china ; the sideboard 
temptingly spread ; the wealth of delicate 
flowers ; the kind and courteous old man 
who always greeted her so lovingly ; the 
pleasant, well-bred guests. 

Ah ! one must not think of these 
things; one must try to persuade one’s 
self that one has always flourished at' 
Portland Villa, among dirt, pewter, and 
cracks. Her offer is accepted with 65*0- 
sive gratitude, and she takes her place at 
the head of the board. 

“ Take care of the lid of the teapot,” 
says Bell, as a parting injunction ; “the 
hinge is broken, so it is loose, and if you 
are not careful to pour very slowly, it 
tumbles into the cups and upsets them.” 

“And is it never to be mended 
either?” asks Joan, with a laugh that 
tries to be playful, but only succeeds in 
being sad. “ Bo the dogs like it too ? ” 

Joan’s motive for her proposal has 
been chiefly good-nature, but there has 
also been in it a grain of self-interest. 
Behind the urn she will be less observed 
— less compelled to eat. But here she is 
mistaken. Biana, whose eyes are appar- 
ently as sharp as they are clear and shin- 
ing, detects the emptiness of her plate, 
and the idleness of her jaws. 

“ Why, Joan, you are eating nothing ! ” 
she cries in a high key of surprise, “ pos- 
itively nothing ! — have some beef ? ” in- 
dicating a dish wherein appetizingly re- 
pose some thick slices of meat, lavishly 
daubed with all but raw mustard, and 
which, apparently, is the nearest approach 
to a grill that the Moberley chef q.qii ef- 
fect. “ No ? Some broiled ham, then ? 
No? I see ” — a flood of color deepening 


/ 


30 


JOAN. 


the rose-tints in her fresh face, and a 
tone of mortification in her voice — “ hun- 
gry as you are, you can’t stand our food ” 
— in a lowered voice — “ and I do not won- 
der.” 

“Indeed you are mistaken,” cries 
Joan, now thoroughly distressed, redden- 
ing till the tears come into her blue eyes, 
with a vexed scarlet that outflames even 
her cousin’s, and ready to volunteer to 
eat any abomination that can be ofifered 
to her. “ If you will let me I will change 
my mind. Yes, I will have some — some 
— beef, please ” (looking anxiously from 
one dish to the other to see whose con- 
tents she will be most likely to be able 
to swallow). “Not very much — only a 
little.” 

It is on her plate now, and they are 
all looking at her. But the effort is vain. 
The too plenteous mustard makes her 
sneeze and cry, the great wedges of coarse 
meat choke her. 

“You cannot manage it ? ” asks Diana, 
in a disappointed key, after watching the 
ill-success of her guest’s endeavors with 
an intent interest. “I was afraid that 
you would not, but” (looking at her 
with round childish eyes, full of concern 
and apprehension) “ what will you do all 
the time that you are living with us ? It 
is ” (glancing ruefully at the untempting 
dainties) — “it is never any better than 
this — you will starve.” 

“ There is not much fear of that ! ” 
replies Joan, smiling faintly, though in- 
deed the very same idea has just been 
presenting itself before her own mind’s 
eye. “ But to tell the truth, I do not 
think that I am quite so hungry as I 
imagined ; at least more bread-and-butter 
hungry than anything else.” 

“ Give it to the dogs,” said Mrs. Mo- 
berley placidly, not disquieting herself 
much as to any freaks of appetite dis- 
played by her niece. — “ Here, Mr. Brown, 
you are the one who do not mind mus- 
tard ! hi, along ! ” 

Mr. Brown is on the other side of the 
table, standing on his hind-legs, with his 


fore-paws on the cloth, but, on hearing 
himself addressed, drops down on all-fours 
again, and rushes round the table in a 
stormy gallop. Too well he knows the 
manners of his brothers and sisters to 
give them any chance of interposing be- 
tween him and his inheritance. Joan 
loves dogs, however noisy, rude, and 
greedy they may be ; she loves them all, 
and at the present moment she is also 
deeply grateful to Mr. Brown for relieving 
her of her beef. So she stoops down and 
pats his smooth head. 

“ He is very like a dog belonging to a 
friend of mine,” she says; “by-the-by, 
I think he is an acquaintance of yours ; 
I mean not the dog, but the man. I think 
— I am almost sure that he said he knew 
you.” 

A light pink colors her cheeks as she 
says these last words, a tint called up by 
the recollection of the way in which Wol- 
ferstan had alluded to his knowledge of 
her aunt. 

“ What regiment was he in ? ” asks 
Bell, to whom “ man” and “ soldier” are 
synonymous terms. “ When was he quar- 
tered here ? The Tth were here last, and 
before them the 35th, and before them 
the 88th—” 

“ He never could have been quartered 
here,” replies Joan, “because he is in the 
Guards, but I believe that he lives near 
here — at least his people do ; his name is 
Wolferstan ; do you know any such per- 
son ? ” 

She is looking from one to the other 
of the three faces round her, and as she 
mentions the name of Wolferstan a ray 
of intelligence and recognition illumines 
them all. 

“ He said he knew us ? ” asks Diana 
in a tone of surprise and semi-awe ; “he 
must have meant by sight.” 

“ Nonsense, Di ! ” cries her mother, 
tartly; “he does know me quite well. 
He always takes off his hat to me when- 
ever he meets me in Helmsley ! ” 

“Is not he stylieh-looking? ” cries 
Bell, enthusiastically; “he looks so nice 


JOAN. 


31 


in church ! lie looks about him a good 
deal during the prayers, but he generally 
goes to sleep in the sermon, and then one 
can see what a length his eye-lashes are ! ” 

“His father was a very distanggy- 
looking man, when first I came here,” 
says Mrs. Moberley, pensively, “ though 
no one would believe it now to look at 
him; he is quite silly, poor old gentle- 
man, and has to go about in a wheeled- 
chair, with his valet to blow his nose for 
him ! ” 

“His mother is a made-up old Jeze- 
bel ! ” cries Bell, acrimoniously. “ Every 
year her hair is a different color; she 
drives past us sometimes in the road, and 
looks at us as if we were the dirt under 
her feet.” 

“ And all because she is an Honorable, 
I suppose,” says Mrs. Moberley, shaking 
her head ; “ and, after all, it is the lowest 
thing that you can be in the peerage, with- 
out being nothing at all.” 

“And so you know young Wolfer- 
stan?” says Diana, with an expression 
of envious ^iifl^||||t in her eyes. “An- 
thony Wolferstih — is not it a lovely name? 
Do you mean that you know him really — 
to talk to ? ” 

Joan laughs a little. “ Is that so sur- 
prising? Yes, I know him rather well; 
he used to stay at a house in our neigh- 
borhood, and I have often met him in 
London, and once he spent a week with 
us last winter, for some theatricals.” 

“ Spent a week with you ! ” echoes 
Bell, in a voice of astonishment and awe ; 
“then I suppose you must have been 
quite among the county people.” 

Joan laughs, but most uncomfortably, 
and involuntarily draws up her white 
throat. 

“ I never looked at it in that light 
before,” she says, in rather a lower key; 
“ but now I come to think of it — yes, I 
suppose we were.” 

“Well, we are not, you know,” cries 
Diana, with a fierce honesty, while a sea 
of ingenuous scarlet washes her cheeks at 
the confession. “ I need not tell you that ; 


we do not look much like it, do we ? We 
know hardly anyone nice except the offi- 
cers, and perhaps you would not think 
them nice ; I believe that the county 
people do not take much notice of them ; 
Micky dined at the Abbey — that is the 
Wolf erstan’s— once, when first he came, 
but they have never asked him again.” 

“ He would not go if they did,” says 
Mrs. Moberley, with dignity; “he has 
said so often and often ; he says he never 
was at such a dull set-out in his life, and 
that they did not give him half enough 
to drink.” 

Diana shakes her head in a manner 
that expresses her doubts of Mr. Brand’s 
fortitude in rebutting the proffered civili- 
ties of the Abbey ; but she is wisely silent. 

“lam not sorry that Joan is so inti- 
mate with young Wolferstan,” remarks 
Joan’s aunt, a moment later, “because 
she will be able to introduce him to you, 
girls, at one of the balls, and, as likely as 
not, he will give you each a dance ; they 
were all at the dispensary ball last year, 
and I remember thinking that he looked 
as if he would like to know you.” 

“ Then what hindered him ? ” says Di- 
ana, dryly. “ I am sure that we were will- 
ing enough.” 

“ He was too much taken up with that 
lady in sulphur-color and sapphires, who 
came with their party,” says Bell, re- 
gretfully. 

“ I never see him that he is not going 
on at a great rate with some one or other, 
and I always wish that I were the per- 
son,” says Diana, with a heart-felt sigh. 
— “Had he a very bad name in your 
neighborhood, Joan?” 

Joan’s eyes are down-drooped toward 
her plate. 

“ I believe that he was considered a 
flirt,” she says, slowly, and rather unwill- 
ingly. 

“ What wicked eyes he has ! ” says 
Bell, with zest ; “ he would be nothing 
without his eyes.” 

“We are not badly off for balls in the 
winter, Joan,” strikes in Mrs. Moberley, 


32 


JOAN. 


complacently, at this point — “ not for a 
country place; there is always the dis- 
pensary, and the bachelors’, and half a 
dozen private ones, counting carpet and 
negus things; and then there is always 
something going on at the barracks — al- 
ways! — they, at least, are determined 
that Helmsley shall not go to sleep if they 
can help it.” 

“ What should we do without them? ” 
sighs Bell, affectionately. — “ Once, J oan, 
there was a talk of building barracks at 
Churton, and moving them from here. I 
do not think that I ever was so miserable 
in my life, and Diana was nearly as bad ; 
but we should not have staid here ; we 
should have underlet the house ; mother 
was already talking about it — ” 

“And followed them?” cries Joan, 
with an irrepressible astonishment and 
disgust; “why, you might as well be 
xivandieres at once ! ” 

“ One might easily be a worse thing ! ” 
says Bell, pettishly; “but I never said 
anything about following them ; I only 
said that we should have left this place.” 

“It is very diflSicult to do without mili- 
tary society when you have been used to 
it all your life,” says Mrs. Moberley, 
rather pompously ; “ these children have 
every right to be fond of the army ; their 
father was a military man 1 ” 

“ He was an army doctor ! ” cries Di- 
ana, with her apparently ungovernable 
honesty. 

“I never denied that he was a medical 
man,” retorts Mrs. Moberley, with ex- 
asperation ; “ but he was in the army all 
the same ! ” 

“ Nobody thinks anything of the doc- 
tors,” persists Diana, resolutely; “we 
never do : which of the girls cares to dance 
with Dr. Slop ? ” 

“ They rank the same as the other 
officers, which you know as well as I do,” 
rejoins Mrs. Moberley, with warmth ; 
“ and their uniform is much handsomer.” 

“ They are not the same thing,” re- 
iterates Diana, doggedly; “and whenever 
I hear you telling people that papa was a 


military man, I always explain, and I al- 
ways shall explain, that he was only the 
doctor 1 ” 


CHAPTER YII. 

Thebe is no reason why an argument 
of this kind should ever end. Neither 
disputant ever advances an inch toward 
an agreement with the other. Nothing 
will convince Mrs. Moberley that her late 
husband was not a military man, nor will 
Diana ever be persuaded that her father 
was of equal value with his brother 
officers in the eyes of the young ladies of 
his days. There is something very heat- 
ing — not only figuratively but literally — 
in an argument. It makes not only the 
combatants but the on-lookers gasp. 

Joan feels a physical oppression — a 
longing for air — when, a lull (caused, not 
by argument, but by want of breath) 
having at length come, the family read- 
journ to the drawing-room. Two or 
three trifling improvements have taken 
place in the aspect of this apartment since 
they left it. Most of the dust has been 
swept into corners or under chairs. The 
dead ashes have left the grate, the pho- 
tograph-books and woolly mats on the 
table are set at right angles again, the 
antimacassars sit smoothly on the chair- 
backs, but the spider’s banner still waves 
in airy freedom from the ceiling, undis- 
turbed by mop or pope’s-head, and the 
windows — on this loveliest, sweetest, 
freshest of April mornings — are shut. 
They are French windows, and look out 
toward the front to the meagre grass-plot 
and the road. Joan stands gazing long- 
ingly out through the dim panes at the 
fairly-colored, well-scented world outside, 
turning over in her mind whether she yet 
knows her cousins well enough to ask 
leave to admit a little air. Has not her 
aunt told her that it is Liberty Hall ? 
Gaining courage from this recollection, 
she raises her fingers to the handle only 
to discover that there is no handle. Both 


JOAN. 


33 


of them have gone, apparently, to look 
for the Jug-spout, the gate-hinge, and the 
other missing etceteras of Portland Villa. 

“ Do you want to open the window? ” 
says Diana, Joining her. “ Stay, I will 
get a pair of scissors ; we always have to 
open them with scissors ; mother’s is the 
largest pair. The handles have been gone 
a long while ; but the fact is, we owe a 
long bill to the locksmith, and we do not 
like to have him again till it is paid ! ” 
They are open now, and the morning 
air, the noise of the blissful bees, the 
clean smell of the arabis float in all to- 
gether. The dogs — they are all pugs, 
more or less — are out on the turf, employ- 
ing themselves in different ways. Mr. 
Brown is digging violently and secretly 
in the corner of the flower-border, making 
the brown earth fly up into his own eyes, 
and over all his eager face, and Eegy and 
Algyare rolling over each other in friend- 
ly battle on the sward. Eegy has both 
paws round Algy’s neck, and Algy has 
got a large and baggy piece of Eegy’s 
black cheek in his mouth. All the clear 
flne air is full of thrush-voices. I sup- 
pose that every April the birds say the 
same thing, but yet it seems as if each 
spring their music were bettered, their 
little trills more deftly done. Joan stands 
leaning against the door listening to them, 
and tapping with one foot on the sill. 

“ How close you are to the sea ! ” she 
says presently, turning her face in the 
direction of the great flood, and opening 
mouth and nostrils to inhale the pungency 
of the sea- wind. “I suppose that you 
are down there every day ? ” 

Diana shakes her head. 

“ Not often ; sometimes we go down 
to bathe if the tide suits, but not often, it 
is too expensive ; what with machine 
and dresses, it comes to a shilling every 
time ! ” 

“ And you never walk on the shore? ” 
“Never,” answers Bell, joining in the 
conversation ; “ no one does ; one never 
meets any of them — I mean, any one 
there ! If there were a pier and the band 
3 


played it would be difi’erent ; but as it is, 
there is nothing — absolutely nothing — but 
sand and cockle-shells.” 

“ Micky sometimes takes his big New- 
foundland down for a swim,” says Diana, 
pulling a bit of wallflower and holding it 
to Mr. Brown’s nose, who, having dug 
his hole as deep as he wished, and disin- 
terred half a dozen innocent bulbs, now 
makes’ one of the party. “ He throws 
sticks in for him ; it is so pretty to see him 
riding up and down on the waves, with 
his great black tail sweeping out behind 
him, like a feather. Dear old dog ! Micky 
is going to give him to me by-and-by, 
when he goes away.” She says the last 
four words in a lower, softer key, with 
her head turned aside, and under her ill- 
fitting pigeon-breasted gown her heart 
heaves in a sigh. 

“ Another dog ? ” says Joan, lifting her 
eyebrows. “ Is he to be in-doors or out- 
of-doors ? ” 

“In-doors, of course,” answers Diana, 
indignantly. “I should as soon think of 
turning mother into the yard as of coop- 
ing up a dog there; and, after all, one 
more does not make much difference 
either way. If one has six, one may Just 
as well have seven.” 

“We have gone on that principle ever 
since we had two,” says Bell, with a 
laugh; “we shall get up to twenty in 
time.” 

“With all my heart,” cries Diana, 
blithely ; “ for though they do not perhaps 
improve the furniture, they certainly are 
the light of the house.” 

As she speaks she Jumps gayly down 
the steps, and, plumping down on the 
grass-plot, is instantly covered by the six 
pugs. Three get on her lap, one licks her 
nose, one mumbles her hand, and two 
worry the rosette on her shoe. 

Joan, laughing, steps out after her; 
and only the consciousness of her new 
crape, and the unlikelihood of its ever 
being replaced, prevent her from Join- 
ing in the fray. 

“Would you like to come out for a 


34 


JOAN. 


walk, Joan ? ” says Diana presently, lifting 
her sunshiny eyes to her cousin’s face. 
“I think it would gratify the dogs I — 
Algy, if you do that once again, I shall 
pull your tail ! — But, perhaps, if you have 
always been used to your carriage, you 
cannot walk.” 

“ But I can, indeed,” cries Joan, eager- 
ly — “nobody better; often and often I 
have walked round the park at home.” 

“ It will not fatigue you to walk round 
the park here,” says Diana, a little sar- 
castically, eying her shabby domain; 
“but if you could condescend to a high- 
road — ” 

“We had better take sun-shades ! ” says 
Bell with alacrity; “there is not much 
shade, and there is a good deal of dust ; 
but when once you get there the shops are 
really very good ; and the morning is not 
a had time either : many of the officers’ 
wives cater for themselves, and one is 
pretty sure to see somebody I ” 

“Are we going to the town?” with 
an accent of unconcealahle disappoint- 
ment, while her thoughts revert to the 
unlovely tract passed last night — the 
brick-fields, the scafifolding-poles, the hos- 
pital. “Must we?” 

There is a little silence. 

Didna has bent her head over the dogs. 

Bell’s jaw has lengthened. “ It is the 
only road where one ever has a chance of 
seeing any one,” she says, peevishly. 

Diana looks up again. If there was 
any cloud on her face it is certainly gone 
again ; the blue sky above is not clearer 
or merrier. “You would like to go to 
the sea ? ” she says, good-temperedly ; 
“ well, we will ! — the dogs love a game 
with the sea-gulls, and they always think 
that they are going to catch them ! ” 

Ten minutes later they set ofl[’. Their 
party, however, is reduced by one. Bell 
stays at home. It is one thing to brave 
the sun-shafts and the dust-clouds for the 
certainty of shops and the hope of offi- 
cers; but quite another thing to expose 
one’s self to these disagreeables merely for 
the sake of sand and cockle-shells. But, 


after all, the sunbeams shine to stroke, 
not to smite, and they come in for hut lit- 
tle dust, as their way lies for the most 
part across fields — fields where the future 
harvest is laughing in green infancy ; 
where the riotous sap is racing along the 
veins of the hedge-row May-bushes ; fields 
where the meadow-grass, forgetting its 
wintry pallor, is beginning to put on again 
its strength and sweetness. 

Joan’s soul has gone out of her body 
— away from her own tame and meagre 
lot, and is frolicking in the spring world, 
when it is suddenly recalled by the voice 
of Diana, in grave and earnest inquiry : 

“Joan, do you like my hat? ” 

Joan brings hack her attention as 
^quickly as she can, from Nature to art, 
and recalls her eyes from the live lark — 
the speck of loud music quivering miles 
above her head — to the dead hird-of -para- 
dise, from whose body a mighty tail has 
been reft — a tail that rears itself aloft and 
sweeps away behind — to adorn her cous- 
in’s coiffure. 

As she does not at once answer (at 
least in words), Diana resumes in a rather 
disappointed voice, but still with confi- 
dence : “It must he all right, for it came 
from Paris — Micky brought it me the 
other day ; people in Ilelmsley laugh at 
it a good deal — so I am told ; hut Helms- 
ley fashions are always a year behind 
Loudon, and London, they say, is a year 
behind Paris; and so, no doubt, it will 
come here in time, and then people will 
see that I have been right all along.” 

“ I was in Paris not long ago,” says 
Joan, slowly, while her eye roves with an 
expression of deep distrust over her cous- 
in’s head, “hut I do not think that I saw 
anything very like it. Are you sure that 
it came from Paris ? ” 

“He said so,” replies Diana, in a 
crestfallen voice; “and I do not think 
that he would tell an untruth about 
it.” 

“ Of course not! ” answers Joan, re- 
flecting that in Paris, no less than in other 
cities, you may no doubt find abominable 


J 0 AN. 


35 


head-gears, if you only go to the right 
places for them. 

A little pause. 

“ You do not like it, then ? ” asks Di- 
ana, diffidently, with a sound of not dis- 
tant tears in her voice. “I had rather 
that you would tell the truth.” 

“ I think it is very — very — very — re- 
markable,” answers Joan, distressed, and 
floundering about in search of an adjec- 
tive which shall he moderately truthful, 
and not too damnatory. “ Has Bell one 
like it? Did he give her one, too? ” 

“ Oh, dear, no ! ” rejoins the other, re- 
covering her alacrity of tone ; “he has 
never given her anything — he is not her 
friend. Bobby Butler gave her a jacket 
last winter — a very handsome one — black 
velvet and sable tails. Bobby paid her a 
great deal of attention, he always asked 
her to dance first, and sometimes took 
her down to supper. Many people 
thought that he would come out with a 
proposal some fine day, but he never did ; 
he went away instead ! ” 

Miss Dering makes no audible com- 
ment on this piece of news, but to her 
own heart she says, “ Wise Bobby.” 

“ He said very disagreeable things 
about us after he went,” pursues Diana, 
gravely ; “ laughing at us, you know, and 
altogether not kind ! When we heard it 
I wanted her to send him the jacket back 
again. Would not you have sent it 
back?” 

“ I should never have taken it in the 
first instance,” answers Joan, drawing up 
her little head, while her cheeks redden, 
and her breath quickens. Diana opens 
her large eyes. 

“ Would not you? ” she says, in a sur- 
prised tone; “but they were real sable 
tails, you know — not mock ! — well — it 
was no use ! she would not send it back ! ” 

J oan groans a little. 

“ And what else have they given 
you ? ” she says, in a tone out of which 
she in vain tries to keep the indignant 
centempt ; “ do they dress you alto- 
gether ? ” 


“ Do you mean that we ought not to 
take presents? ” asks Diana, gazing with 
a little consternation, and a good deal of 
astonishment at her cousin’s lifted head 
and flushed cheeks ; “ but, you know, we 
do not ask for them ; they offer them to 
us, and ” (rather faltering) “ when one is 
very badly off, and has very few clothes 
of one’s own, and is fond of being a little 
smart, it is so hard to refuse ! ” 

Joan is silent; a silence of anything 
but acquiescence, as Diana feels. 

“ I do not want them to give me any- 
thing expensive or valuable,” she goes 
on, after a moment or two, in a rather 
humiliated tone. “I am sure it is the 
last thing I wish, that Micky should give 
me a jacket like Bell’s, as he sometimes 
talks of doing ; for I do not think he is 
well off, and I am sure he could not afford 
it; but a hat! — that could not ruin him, 
I thought, and it was a great matter to 
me ! ” 

There is such a wistfulness in her 
tone as she makes this last appeal, that 
Joan feels compelled to smile, but it is 
the smile of a young Spartan. 

“ I would sooner have gone without 
a hat ! ” she says, emphatically ; “or, in- 
deed, without a head ! ” 

They walk on in an uncomfortable si- 
lence ; the one irritated and galled, the 
other crestfallen and humbled. But, be- 
fore long, the warm shining of the sun, 
the lark’s solo, and the sound of the 
plash and plunge of the morning waves 
that they are nearing, smooth the creases 
out of Miss Dering’s temper, and she 
speaks again ; changing, this time, the 
obnoxious theme, though not getting as 
far from it as she perhaps imagines. 

“What odd names your dogs have! 
Algy, Regy, Charlie, Mr. Brown, Willy. 
They are not like dogs’ names ! ” 

“No, they are not,” replies Diana, 
meekly ; “ and indeed they are not dogs^ 
names ; we christened them after — after 
— people ! ” 

“ After men you know ? ” (lifting her 
eyebrows again a little). 


36 


JOAN. 


“ After men in different regiments 
that have been here,” says Diana, turn- 
ing her head half away, and looking fool- 
ish ; “ men that were — were — friends of 
ours. Algy was in the 88th, Regy was 
ill the 35th, Willy was in the 10th, Char- 
lie — I forget what Charlie was in ! — it is 
so long ago ! he is the eldest of the 
whole lot.” 

“ And Mr. Brown ? ” asks Joan, laugh- 
ing against her will. 

“ Oh I Mr.. Brown,” replies Diana, 
rather confused; “well, he used to be 
Bobby, after Bobby Butler ; but when he 
behaved so badly to Bell, we thought we 
would not call him Bobby any more, be- 
cause it only reminded us ; so we re- 
christened him after Mr. Brown, who was 
in the same regiment ; he hardly knows 
his name yet.” 

“ But w^hy Mr. Brown ? ” inquires 
Joan, wondering ; “ why are you so 
much more respectful to him than to the 
others ? ” 

“We knew him less,” explains Diana, 
gravely; “we never were intimate wdth 
him, and he never would tell us what his 
Christian name was — I do not know wby 
— so we had to call the ‘dog Mr. Brown.” 

Joan laughs with a sincere though 
dismal mirth. 

“And when Micky goes, will you 
christen another dog after him ? ” she 
asks. 

“ I do not know,” replies Diana, rather 
shortly, turning her head about with an 
uneasy movement ; “ he is not gone yet : 
it will be time enough to think about 
that when he is.” 

They have reached the sea ; have 
passed the loose sand-hills, where the dry 
grass scantly waves, and the blue sea- 
thistles blow; have lightly sprung over 
half a dozen runlets racing down to emp- 
ty their little teacups of fresh, sweet 
water far into the salt and greedy sea, 
that takes all presents and says no 
“ thank you ” for them. 

Now they stand side by side on a 
stretch of hard sand, on which the foot 


scarcely leaves a print, and which — were 
the day sulky and dull — would be called 
brown, but now are glistening and daz- 
zling with unquestioned gold. Is it not a 
wealthy day? — a silver sea breaking on 
golden sands, and both atched by a sap- 
phire sky. 

The sea is in its ci vilest humor. With 
the meekest air, the blandest, sleepiest, 
most lulling sound, it comes creaming in ; 
deceitfully stealing round their feet as 
they stand, and coolly fondling them. 
To-day it is too gentle even to laugh; 
only it smiles up to the sun, with un- 
numbered dimples. 

“ ‘ I see the deep’s untrampled floor 

With green and purple sea- weed strown,’ ” 

says Joan, half under her breath, stoop- 
ing to pick up a length of sea-bloom that, 
drenched and emerald-colored, has just 
drifted to her feet; then turning with 
wondering lips and kindling eyes to Di- 
ana : 

“And you never come here? you do 
not like it ? ” 

“ I like it well enough,” replies Diana, 
apologetically, shading her eyes with her 
hand from the sun-and-sea dazzle. — 
“Look! ” (pointing to a little puff and a 
small tail of smoke away on the horizon), 
“there is a steamer I is not it tantaliz- 
ing? they never come any nearer than 
that: it would be so pleasant if they 
would come quite close, and one could 
see who was on board 1 — Yes ” (resuming 
the thread of her discourse), “I like it 
well enough, as I said; but you see it is 
not only I; there are two of us, you 
know, and Bell hates it; she does not 
care to walk anywhere much except on 
the Helmsley road, and I must own that 
one does see six carriages there of a day, 
for one that one sees anywhere else.” 

Joan shrugs her shoulders, and flings 
back her green weed, which, limply cling- 
ing round her fingers, has lost half its 
native beauty, into a rippling wave that 
comes to fetch it, and on which it floats 
home again with recovered loveliness. 


JOAN. 


37 


“ It is not quite all Bell’s fault either,” 
resumes Diana presently, with an uncom- 
fortable sense of having slightly misrepre- 
sented things, and laid a heavier burden 
on her sister’s shoulders than they quite 
deserve to bear. “ I like the Helmsley 
road, too ; I like going where one is most 
likely to see people, too ; but I do not 
dislike the sea” (looking round with a 
tolerant air on the august flood before 
her) ; “if it were only I, I should most 
likely come here a good deal oftener; 
and I am rather fond of sea-things. Once 
I kept a sea- anemone in my wash-hand- 
basin for a fortnight, and fed it with raw 
beef.” 

Joan laughs a little at this naive in- 
stance of love for the wonders of the 
deep, and then stoops down pensively to 
pull the ear of Mr. Brown, who, either 
through having more common-sense or 
being more incumbered with fat than his 
brothers, has desisted earlier from the 
sea-gull chase, and now^sits on the hard 
sand, with his heart beating very fast, 
and slobbering a good deal as his eyes 
follow his late quarry with an expression 
which seems to say that the ways of sea- 
gulls — luring on an honest dog only to 
delude him — are not according to his 
ideas of what the manners of a modest 
bird should be. 

“ He is like young Wolferstan’s dog, 
now you mention it,” says Diana, stoop- 
ing too, and stroking the fine velvet of 
his other ear ; “ and yet they say that he 
gave five-and-twenty guineas for his, and 
we did not give five-and-twenty pence 
for you — did we, Mr. Brown? — By-the- 
by, Joan ” (with quickened tone and 
brightened eyes), “we may as well go 
home by the Abbey, may not we ? as you 
know him, you would like to see the 
place where he lives, and it is not at all 
out of our way.” 

“ If you like,” answers J oan, in rather 
a melancholy tone. “Yes, certainly I I 
suppose that there is no fear of meeting 
any of them ! — that they are all safe away 
in London? ” 


“Yes,” says Diana, heaving a deep 
sigh, “ safe away in London ! lucky peo- 
ple! — as regularly as the spring comes 
round, off they go! What would they 
say to me, who have never been to Lon- 
don in my life? BelLwas there once, 
but she did not like it ; she said it made 
her feel so small. I do not think I should 
mind that — I mean, I am used to it ; even 
here in Helmsley, I never feel very large ! ” 

They lapse into silence. The sun has 
mounted higher. Now that they have 
left the breeze-beaten shore, and the cool 
fields, and are tramping along a glaring, 
dusty high-road, he smites on their heads 
with less kindness and more force. Phys- 
ical discomfort deepens the gloom of 
Joan’s reflections. 

“Have we much farther to go? ” she 
says after a while, in a rather disconsolate 
voice, trailing one foot languidly after 
another, in the powdery dust. 

“We are just there,” answers Diana, 
cheerfully; “there are the gates, with 
their wolf crest on them! — oh, how 
thirsty I am ! I will ask the lodge-woman 
for a glass of water, and then we can have 
a chat with her, and she will tell us all 
about them — when they are coming 
down.” 

They have reached the gates ; the high 
and solid stone posts, surmounted by great 
stone balls, and on each of which a wolf’s 
head, with fanged jaws, is forever grin- 
ning in stone. The lodge-keeper is appar- 
ently out. The lodge-door is shut. Evi- 
dently, in the absence of the family, she 
is taking a holiday from her duties. The 
hoped-for information about the family 
is therefore not forthcoming. 

“One can get a capital view of the 
house if one puts one’s head far enough 
through,” says Diana, thrusting her hot 
cheeks between the cool iron bars of the 
gate, and twisting her neck. “ Later on in 
the year, when the scarlet geraniums are 
in flower, one can see them quite plainly; 
I fancy they have a lovely garden.” 

“ Have you never been inside? ” asks 
Joan, in surprise. 


38 


JOAN. 


“ Never ; it is not a show-place, and 
you know we do not know them ; mother 
says ” (in a tone of contempt) “ that Colo- 
nel Wolferstan knows her, hut I do not 
call it knowing a person to say ‘Good- 
morning, Mrs. Moberley ! fine day ! ’ if he 
happens to meet her ; it is my belief that 
he would not know her even by sight, 
only that she is so remarkable-looking it 
is difficult to forget her when once you 
have seen her.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

It is an hour later. They are at home 
again. 

“At what time do you dine?” asks 
Joan, languidly, as a horrible suspicion 
that a lengthy, steaming, mid-day dinner 
is henceforth to be her portion, dawns 
on her mind. 

Not even the sight, the sound, the 
smell, or the taste of the sea has been 
able to raise Miss Dering’s spirits. "What- 
ever small measure of cheerfulness and 
buoyancy they inspired has been coun- 
teracted by her scanty view through the 
harshly-closed gates of Wolferstan’s home. 
It seems to her a grim augury of the way 
in which, from this time onward, she will 
make acquaintance with all fair and pleas- 
ant things. She will peep at them dis- 
tantly through iron bars. 

“ At what hour do we dine ? ” repeats 
Diana, reflectively ; “ well, to tell you the 
truth, that is a fact at which I have never 
yet arrived : all I know is, that it is never 
the same two days together ; sometimes 
the butcher does not bring the meat, 
sometimes the oven will not heat, some- 
times the kitchen clock stops, sometimes 
Sarah forgets to lay the cloth ; however, 
it is generally somewhere between one 
and three, though I have known it half- 
past twelve, and I have known it four ; 
however, when there is nothing to do all 
day” (yawning), “it does not much mat- 
ter, does it ? But if you are hungry, as 


indeed you have every right to be, let 
me fetch you a bit of bread ; I know that 
there is bread, for I saw the baker’s cart 
drive away five minutes ago.” 

But Joan is not hungry. Not even 
when, by-and-by, seated at the dinner- 
table, she watches Mrs. Moberley sawing 
asunder a gigantic fowl, which has evi- 
dently spent a long life in walking, so 
preternaturally are the muscles of his legs 
developed : a mammoth bird, flanked by 
the biggest ham that ever scratched itself 
in life against a post. 

“You might ride to York on this 
knife ! ” observes Mrs. Moberley, desist- 
ing, heated and baffled, from her efforts, 
and eying her implement with an exas- 
perated air. “ I do not know what has 
come to the knives of late; one cannot 
tell the backs from the blades.” 

“ Micky has spoilt most of our knives 
cutting soda-water wires with them,” says 
Bell, gravely ; “ he ought to give us a new 
set when he goes.away, and so I shall tell 
him.” 

“Do not! ’’cries Diana, hastily, and 
reddening; “for Heaven’s sake do not 
let us try to get anything more out of 
them ! ” 

“Talking of soda-water,” says Mrs. 
Moberley, slowly, in the intervals of wres- 
tling with the mighty pinion before her, 
“ reminds me that, whether you like it or 
not, girls, into Helmsley you must go this 
afternoon; as I told you last night, we 
are quite out of soda-water, and the man 
has not brought the beer ! ” 

“ I must give my curl a turn with the 
irons, then,” says Diana, pulling out her 
long, trolloping lock to its full length, and 
pensively regarding it; “it was bad 
enough this morning, but the sea-air has 
taken out what little remnant of curl was 
left in it.” 

“ I have half a mind to go with you my- 
self, girls,” says Mrs. Moberley, friskily; 
“that is, if you will let me take my time 
and not run me off my legs ; why should 
not we make an afternoon of it — it is a 
poor heart that never rejoices — and take 


JOAN. 


39 


Joan round by the barracks and the club- 
room ? ” 

But against this plan for her enter- 
tainment Joan rises in mild but resolute 
revolt. Whether she will ever be able to 
brace her nerves enough to enable her to 
let herself be hawked about among the 
170th regiment has yet to be decided. At 
present she is at some distance from that 
consummation. 

“Very well, my dear, very well!” 
replies her aunt, rather offended ; “ say 
no more about it — say no more — none in 
this house are ever obliged to do any- 
thing that is disagreeable to them : as I 
told you when you came, it is Liberty 
Hall, Joan— Liberty Hall 1 ” 

So she sees them go without her. It 
is some time before they are really off*, as 
— apart from the matter of the curling- 
irons — an entire change of costume is 
apparently necessary. At length they 
are ready ; the girls with their cuffs well 
pulled down over their knuckles, their 
dresses freely opened at the throat, their 
necks abundantly hung with lockets, and 
their hair freshly frizzed — newly towzled. 

“ I do not care how many people we 
meet now,” says Bell, exultantly, drawing 
on a pair of tight gloves ; “ the more the 
better ! Come along, Di ! ” 

But Diana is apparently not quite so 
fully convinced of the unexceptionable- 
ness of her appearance as is her sister. 
She has glanced furtively at J oan to see 
■what expression her eyes wear, and, going 
over to her, has said brusquely, with un- 
comfortably red cheeks : 

“ I see that you think we have over- 
done it; we always do.” Then, not wait- 
ing for the unready answer: “Do not be 
more bored than you can help while we 
are away! ” — she goes on moving toward 
the door, and looking back rather wist- 
fully from it — “there is a novel lying 
about somewhere. I brought it from the 
library the other day ; there is a bit miss- 
ing from the third volume, but one can 
give a good guess what it is about ; where 
has it gone to, I wonder?” (glancing 


round the room) ; “ I do not see it any- 
where — do you ? ” 

“ Most likely the dogs have got hold 
of it,” says Mrs. Moberley, placidly. “ Mr. 
Brown is fond of a book.” 

“ I saw a book in the laurel-tree this 
morning,” suggests Joan, doubtfully ; 
“ could that have been it ? it looked 
rather battered.” 

“Very likely,” rejoins Diana, com- 
posedly ; “ most things in this house ffnd 
their way sooner or later to the laurel- 
tree ; well, you .will know where to look 
for it if you want it ! ” 

Now they are gone — not, however, 
before Bell again puts her head inside the 
door, to remark in a wheedling voice : 

“Even if your boxes come you will 
not unpack them while we are away, will 
you? ” 

The house-door has banged behind 
them ; they have passed down the drive, 
round the corner, out of sight. Joan 
turns from the window with a half smile 
on her lips at a last vision of Bell angrily 
fencing off Mr. Brown from her clean 
gown with her parasol. Then she takes 
out her ■watch, and, with her eyes on its 
face, makes a calculation. At Mrs. Mo- 
berley ’s rate of walking it will take them 
quite three-quarters of an hour to reach 
Helmsley, three-quarters of an hour to 
return. They will surely not spend less 
than an hour and a half there : three 
hours in all. She has therefore three 
good hours before her. Three hours for 
what ? For reflection ? In her present 
situation three minutes would be too 
much. 

She walks slowly round the room, 
with her hands loosely folded behind her. 
Unsparingly she examines each of the 
details that make up so sordid a whole. 
She discovers half a dozen latent dust- 
heaps, a score of greater and lesser spi- 
ders’-webs, a variety of ink-stains on the 
table-cloth, and many rents in the chair- 
covers. 

Then she returns to the window, and 
drawing up a chair to it, so as to feel all 


40 


JOAN. 


the honeyed freshness of the air, sits 
down, and leaning her sleek head against 
the faded, woolly antimacassar, thinks. 
In dreary panorama all the incidents of 
her short stay, that yet seems so long, 
tread past before her mind’s eye. 

“ I had no idea that I was so greedy,” 
she says aloud, as her thoughts tarry in- 
voluntarily long at the breakfast which 
had been so difficult to get through. 
“ Hitherto I have always thought that I 
had eaten to live ; now I see that I must 
have lived to eat ! ” 

She closes her eyes, and past, present, 
and future, walk solemnly by : the first 
all sunshiny gold, the second all drab, the 
third all ink. Two tears steal out from 
under her shut lids, but no sooner does 
she feel them on her cheek than she raises 
herself, and indignantly shakes them away. 

“Is this my pluck?” she says, still 
speaking aloud, though in a low key ; 
“the pluck of which I boasted even to 
him? Is this the way in which I had 
braced myself to meet my troubles ? Just 
because they are not of the kind I ex- 
pected, are they to find me limp and pul- 
ing like this ? Just because I expected a 
stab, and have found pin-pricks instead ? 
Oh ! I would rather have been stabbed — 
stabbed deep ! Any stab would have been 
better — anything would have been bet- 
ter ! ” she says, twisting her hands to- 
gether and writhing at the thought of the 
daily, hourly, momently penance to which 
every tone of voice, every movement, 
every mode of thought of the'Moberley 
family condemns, and will forever con- 
demn, her. “"Well” (rising again, and 
again beginning to walk about the room), 
“ well ! I suppose that none can pick 
and choose their afflictions. If I had had 
my choice I should have lived with gen- 
tlefolks, and they should have bullied me, 
they should have had next to no hair on 
their heads, and should never have men- 
tioned a soldier.” She laughs a little, and 
then, lapsing into deeper gravity, says 
presently, “ God give me pluck to keep 
up a good heart and bear my pin-pricks ! ” 


It is a real prayer, though, perhaps, 
not conventionally worded. Occupation 
of some kind she must have; but what? 
Her boxes not having yet arrived, none 
of her own resources are within reach. 
She looks rather hopelessly round the 
room — not to criticise this time, but to 
search. The sight of a work-basket dis- 
gorging tangled Berlin w'ools puts an idea 
into her head. Why not mend the hole 
in the dining-room carpet ? 

Joan has been taught stitching in all 
its branches, and, what is more, she loves 
it. She has never before, indeed, been 
set to mend carpets, but she has mended 
rents in other things, and, after all, it is 
only the application to a new purpose of 
old knowledge. In three minutes, armed 
with a darning-needle and a skein of wool, 
with her gown turned inside out and 
pinned round, her, she is kneeling on the 
dusty carpet, her whole soul absorbed in 
the endeavor to make the ragged, straggly 
edges of the great rent approach each 
other. 

There is something very soothing in 
work, especially handiwork. As Joan 
toils the blood runs to her head, it is true, 
but the bitterness goes out of her heart. 
A sense of amusement takes its place. 

What if that very fine lady, her late 
maid, could see her now ? What if any 
of her former friends? What if Wolfer- 
stan, arriving unexpectedly from London 
and coming to pay his promised visit, 
were to peep in through the window and 
see her. She looks up involuntarily, half 
expecting to meet his eyes smiling in upon 
her. But no ! Through the casement — 
the wind has risen a little — she sees a 
blue-and-yellow tom-tit swinging to and 
fro, in airy jollity, on the topmost twig 
of the little sere cypress outside — that is 
all. So she resumes her task. After a 
while she straightens herself, and, sitting 
up again, speaks out loud : 

“There is nothing more revolting 
than ingratitude,” she says, emphatically ; 
“they were ready to give me their very 
best — it is not their fault that their best 


JOAN. 


41 


is so exceedingly bad. They were willing 
even to go shares with me in Micky.” 
She laughs softly with a genuine mirth. 
“Well! I have no Micky to halve, it is 
true, but I can make as great a sacrifice ; 
I will let them copy all my best gowns in 
red-and-yellow calico! ” 

Again she laughs ; and so falls to work 
again. The yawning gap has already dis- 
appeared, and is replaced by a lattice- 
work. To and fro, along and across, 
quick and sure, the darning-needle goes. 

There is still another hour’s work be- 
fore her. As she so thinks, the door-bell 
ringing clangs upon her ear. It cannot 
be that her cousins are returned already. 
It must be some one come to call. 

“ One of them^ perhaps 1 ” she says a lit- 
tle sarcastically; “who knows? — Micky 
himself? What a bitter disappointment 
it will be, when they come back and learn 
what they have lost ! ” 

After a pause, and two more applica- 
tions to the bell on the part of the visitor, 
Sarah is heard going to obey the sum- 
mons. The door opens; there is a par- 
ley; it closes again. Sarah returns along 
tlie passage. What a heavy foot she has ! 
IIow ponderously she treads ! 

Secure in the consciousness of not 
having a single acquaintance in Helms- 
ley ; sure of having neither part nor lot 
in the visitor, and confident, therefore, 
of remaining undisturbed, Joan has not 
taken the trouble to change her position, 
or lift her head. She is still kneeling, 
still darning, when a loud and palpably 
artificial “ H’m ! ” uttered in an unmis- 
takably masculine voice, makes her start 
violently and look hastily up. Even if 
Sarah could simulate a manly tread, it 
would be impossible for her or any other 
known parlor-maid to counterfeit such a 
voice. 

A perfectly unknown man stands be- 
fore her — a young man, and, judging by 
his appearance, an extremely healthy 
one ; a young man, holding a hat in 
onfe hand and a stick in the other, and 
with a confident smile of extreme friend- 


liness both on his lips and in his gay bold 
eyes. 

“Mrs. Moberley is out,” says Joan, 
rising quickly, but without hurry or dis- 
comfiture, from her lowly posture, and 
bending her head slightly in polite but 
grave salutation. 

“ And are the girls out too ? ” asks the 
young man, in a voice that fitly matches 
in depth and gruffness the sound of his 
introductory “H’m!” and preparing to 
deposit his hat and stick in the hall, with 
an evident intention of staying some time. 

“ My cousins are out ! ” answers Joan, 
with a slight but intentional accent on 
the first two words, and infusing a little 
more ice than before into her tone. “I 
suppose that Sarah must have misled you 
by the idea that they were at home? ” 

“ No, she did not,” replies the young 
man, nonchalantly ; “ she told me that 
they Were out — that no one but you was 
at home; but I thought that — ” He is 
looking full at her as he speaks — at the 
soft yet proud seriousness of her face — 
and something in it (he himself could hot 
have told you what) makes him change the 
end of his sentence. He had meant to 
say — “I thought that I would come in 
and have a chat with you.” He says in- 
stead — “I thought that I would come in 
and wait till their return ! You know ” 
(with a half-awkward, half-familiar laugh) 
“ I am quite a tame cat here — in and out 
whenever I like.” 

“ Yes ? ” in a rather more frozen key 
than before. 

How tall she is ! He had no idea, as 
she knelt, how tall she was. Both her 
cousins, both the Moberleys and he, had 
agreed that she should be a little woman ; 
one can grow much more quickly intimate 
with a little woman. There is something 
rather confusing, even to a person who 
does'not know what shyness is, in having 
a tall young vestal standing opposite to 
him, looking calmly at him with a grave 
and, as he feels, not admiring composure, 
and evidently expecting him to go. It is 
clear that she can have no idea who he is. 


42 


JOAN. 


“ As there is no one here to introduce 
us to eacli other,” he says, with rather a 
nervous laugh, “ I suppose we must intro- 
duce ourselves. I have no doubt that we 
have heard each other’s name very often.” 

“ I have not yet the pleasure of know- 
ing what your name is,” answers Joan, 
gravely. 

She has unpinned her gown, and it 
now hangs in heavy, simple folds around 
her. She is still looking at him. 

He wishes that she would look away. 
He laughs again more nervously, and also 
louder. 

“If you have heard it half as often as 
I have heard yours, you have every right 
to he sick of it.” 

This remark does not seem to Miss 
Dering to require an answer, so she makes 
none. 

“My name is Brand,” he goes on, 
speaking fast and uneasily, while the 
naturally healthy tint of his cheek percep- 
tibly deepens. “ I think you must have 
heard them mention it. I am here most 
afternoons. I see a great deal of them.” 

“ Yes.” 

A little silence. The tom - tit still 
swings and sways on his cypress twig; 
the rooks are sailing home toward the 
Abbey, Wolferstan’s rooks sailing home- 
ward through the placid sea of air ; the 
shadows are beginning to grow. 

“ Do you expect them back soon ? ” 
says Mr. Brand presently, shifting rest- 
lessly from one foot to the other, and grow- 
ing ever more and more uneasy under the 
cold shining of his companion’s eyes. 
“ Did they say, when they set off, how 
long they meant to be away? ” 

“ Most of the afternoon, I think.” 

“ And left you here all alone ? ” 

“ I preferred it.” 

“ At all events they have lost no time 
in setting you to work,” he says, with a 
brusque laugh, glancing at her late occu- 
pation, and trying, by a great effort, to 
resume his gayety and assurance. 

To this observation Miss Dering vouch- 
safes no reply of any sort. 


Another pause. 

A lamb in the meadow over the road 
— a lamb that has evidently mislaid its 
mother — bleats in loud complaint. 

“ If you really think it worth while to 
wait for their return,” says Joan, present- 
ly, with a rather severe intonation, “ per- 
haps you will come into the drawing- 
room.” As she speaks she leads the way 
across the narrow passage, and ushers in 
her unwelcome visitor. “ I fear that you 
will find it tedious,” she says, formally, 
“ as I do not expect them back till six or 
seven. If you will excuse me, I will return 
to my work.” 

So saying, and again bowing slightly, 
she walks out of the room and shuts the 
door after her. Then repinning her gown, 
she kneels down again, and resettles to 
her toil. An amused smile passes over 
her features, that have lately been set in 
so austere a gravity. 

“ So this is Micky,” she says to her- 
self. “Well, like everything else, he is 
rather worse than I expected.” 

For some time absolute silence reigns. 
No sound whatever issues from the draw- 
ing-room. After a while, however, there 
is a noise as of some one walking about 
to and fro, up and down, in the confined 
space. Apparently time is beginning to 
hang on Mr. Brand’s hands. Then the 
piano is opened, and sounds arise from it. 
It is very much out of tune ; several of 
the upper notes are quite dumb, and 
Micky is but a poor performer. Appar- 
ently he is trying to pick out the “Dead 
March ” in “ Saul ” with one finger on it. 
Thence he slides rather suddenly into 
“ Take back the Heart that thou gavest,” 
which he accompanies with his voice. 
Then he leaves off altogether. A few 
moments later he opens the door. 

“Would you mind my leaving this 
open a little? ” he asks, in a voice a good 
deal less confident and more respectful 
than that which he had at first employed; 
“ it need not disturb yon, and -we might 
have a little conversation.” 

“ Certainly, if you wish.” 


JOAN. 


43 


Having gained the permission, he 
leans against the door-post, with his legs 
crossed, and his hands in his pockets, hut 
at first the little conversation does not 
seem forthcoming. At length, “It is 
wonderfully warm w^lither for the time 
of year,” he says. He has evidently 
been searching among his repertoire of 
remarks for one warranted not to give of- 
fense, and has been unable to find any- 
thing less obvious than this. 

“ Yes.” 

“ It is too good to last, I fear ; we shall 
have the east wind back to-morrow, prob- 
ably.” 

“ Probably.” 

“Was there a good deal of east wind 
at your — where you came from ? ” 

“A good deal.” 

A pause. Joan is aware that Mr. 
Brand’s eyes are fastened immovably upon 
her ; but, as he can see nothing but her 
tightly-coiled hair and the nape of her 
neck, she is not much concerned. 

“If you will excuse my asking” (in a 
rather diffident voice), “ are you really 
first-cousin to the Misses Moberley? I 
think I must have misunderstood, but I 
thought they said 

“Yes, first.” 

“First-cousins are such near relations,” 
pursues the young man, “next thing to 
being sisters.” 

“ Not quite that,” rejoins Joan, quick- 
ly, involuntarily raising herself, and look- 
ing up. 

“But next step to it,” repeats the 
other, persistently. “I suppose that 
your mother and Mrs. Moberley were 
sisters? ” 

“I suppose so,” echoes Joan, dreami- 
ly, still sitting up, forgetting her work 
and Micky, and staring blankly before 
her, while the monstrousness of this 
proposition strikes her with fresh force 
and novelty; “I mean — yes — of course 
they were I ” 

“You take after your father’s family, 
I suppose? ” 

“ I suppose so ” (rather shortly, with 


a thought that the conversation is grow- 
ing undesirably personal, and resuming 
her needle). 

Another silence ; as far as Miss Be- 
ring is concerned, it may last forever; 
there is nothing embarrassing in an occu- 
pied silence, but to be totally idle, and as 
totally dumb, is confusing. 

So Micky feels apparently, for he be- 
gins again: “Had you a long journey 
yesterday ? ” 

“ Rather long.” 

“ Railway- traveling is very fatiguing, 
is not it? ” 

“Very.” 

“ Not so bad as one of the old coach- 
es, though, I dare say ? ” 

“ I dare say not.” 

“ Particularly if you went inside ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

Again the lamb, the rooks, and the 
tom-tit, have all the talk to themselves. 
But Mr. Brand is not easily either baffled 
or* silenced. After a few moments he be- 
gins again : 

“The gi — I mean your cousins — are 
very good walkers.” 

“Are they? ” 

“ Are you a good walker? ” 

“Pretty good.” 

“ It is a — a — very healthy exercise.” 

“ Yes.” 

“Not so healthy as riding, though, 
doctors tell you.” 

“No.” 

“ Walking is fatigue without exercise, 
and riding is exercise without fatigue, 
they say, do not they? ” 

“I believe so.” 

“Your boxes are come!” cries a 
voice, loud and shrill with excitement, 
breaking in at this point, as Bell’s face, 
hot with running, and reddened by pleas- 
urable agitation, looks in like a very full- 
blown rose at the window — “ at least they 
will be in two minutes ; we passed the 
carrier’s cart. I ran on to tell you ; they 
quite fill it. Diana says she counted 
seven ; what can you have in seven box- 
es?” She stops, out of breath; then. 


44 


JOAN. 


catching sight of Mr. Brand: “Well, it 
never rains but it pours ! you here ? ” 

“ I am here so very seldom that that 
is a most astonishing fact, is not it ? ” an- 
swers the young man, coolly advancing, 
with a languid air of completest, easiest 
intimacy, to meet his young friend. 

Bell is in the house by now, and, hav- 
ing pulled off her hat, is fanning her 
heated cheeks with it. “ Why, you told 
us that you were to he on guard all to- 
day ! ” she says, reproachfully. 

“ But you see I am not.” 

At the utter . and almost contemptu- 
ous familiarity of his tone, Joan looks up 
in astonishment. Can this he the young 
man who, for the last half-hour, has been 
laboriously dragging up respectable tru- 
isms from the depths of his being, and 
diffidently presenting them to her ? 

But there is no anger on Bell’s face, 
only a gratified mirth. “So you two 
have been making friends, I suppose ? ” 
she goes on, gayly; “ it is rather late 'in 
the day to introduce you to each other, 
is not it ? Have you been making 
friends? ” 

As she speaks she looks, smiling in- 
quisitively, from one to the other. A 
little pause. 

“Query? have we? ” says the young 
man at length, with a laugh happily com- 
pounded of swagger and embarrassment. 

But Joan affects to be deaf to the 
question, if it is one. She has walked to 
the window, and is looking out. 

“ Seven boxes,” resumes Bell, return- 
ing to the subject which is uppermost in 
her thoughts; “what can you have in 
seven boxes? It will take us quite a 
whole day to go through them, will not 
it?” 

“ Quite,” replies Joan, sighing. 

It is evening now. Mr. Brand has at 
length gone, and the candles are lit. “ I 
never was so sure as you were, mother, 
that they would get on well,” Bell is say- 
ing apropos of her cousin and Micky, as 
she watches the latter’s retreating figure 


lessening down the starlit road, and 
shaking her head. “Micky hates being 
on his P’s and Q’s ; he likes girls with 
whom he can be quite at home, at once 
— who do not mind what he says to 
them; that is whjirhe likes us so much, 
often and often he has said so.” 

“A left-handed compliment, is not 
it?” says Diana, with a rather bitter 
laugh. “It strikes me that most of our 
compliments are left-handed ones.” 


CHAPTER IX. 

Thus Joan has overlived one day of 
her new life. She has even begun upon 
another, for it is morning again. If she 
has overlived one she can overlive all. 
Probably one will he no better or worse 
than another. It is possible, indeed, that 
use may bring some slight alleviation to 
her sufferings. Use may adapt her palate 
to the Moberley dishes ; may harden her 
eye to the Moberley stains and rents. Use 
may accustom her ear to the staccato 
music of the Moberley voices, and train 
her mind to find food and occupation in 
the Helmsley Barracks. As long as each 
day comes singly, each freighted only 
with its own load, people can bear a great 
deal. 

Thus Joan thinks, as she strolls after 
breakfast among the lanky gooseberry- 
bushes with all the dogs at her heels, or 
trotting companionably before her, and 
with the children of Campidoglio Villa 
peeping at her through the ragged quick- 
set hedge. After half an hour, spent in 
trying to cudgel her spirits into content \ 
and cheerfulness, she strolls hack again 
to the house; and a quarter of an hour 
later is walking thoughtfully under an 
umbrella, and with her hands full of wall- 
flowers, to the sea. To-day, no one has 
offered to accompany her. Bell’s opinion 
of the ocean she already knows, nor is 
Diana so much addicted to the wonders 
; of the deep as to wish to visit them twice 


JOAN. 


45 


running. So she is alone — alone but for 
the dogs ; the dogs that can rub no one 
the wrong way ; who have no preference 
for soldiers over civilians, wear no false 
tails, and try to mitigate the blackness of 
their faces by no pearl powder, or cream 
of roses. 

Mr. Brown is carrying a long stick — 
so long that it nearly trips him up, as he 
gallops bravely past, defiantly eying the 
other dogs out of the corner of his eye. 
She stops to look at three cart-horses 
drinking at a muddy pool, with collars 
down, slipped over their necks. She 
wonders how they drink. They do not 
seem to open their mouths at all ; rather 
to inhale the water through their nostrils. 
Already she feels soothed. Every trouble 
is easier to bear out-of-doors than in- 
doors; and this is true, not only of a 
great grief, hut of a small vexation. The 
birds of the air, the beasts of the field 
— yes, the gawky lambs and solemn fiap- 
ping rooks, the very winds and flowers, 
help to carry one’s, load for one. By the 
time she has reached the sea, she can 
think with toleration even of Bell and her 
fur coat. 

She is beside the great water now, 
and, with a long sigh of content, sits down 
on the shingle. Having explained to the 
dogs kindly, hut firmly, that she does not 
wish for sandy paws round her neck, or 
for hot red tongues licking her cheeks; 
having begged Mr. Brown to cease gog- 
gling at her so affectionately, and directed 
his attention to the insolence of the sea- 
gulls, she remains at peace, with her 
hands clasping her knees and her looks 
directed to the loud glad flood. She 
watches the large brown waves turn over, 
lengthily curling, with a booming noise, 
in the sun ; tossing high their foamy 
heads in the wind, running up to lay their 
myriad snow-white foam-bubbles at her 
feet, and then drawing back again with 
a sucking sound, carrying with them the 
wet pebbles. 

A sea-bird of some kind — a diver of 
engaging manners — is serenely riding up 


and down, up and down on the wavering, 
heaving plain ; plunging every two min- 
utes, with a little splash, into the green 
depths and coming up again black-headed 
and complacent, a hundred yards from 
the spot where he disappeared. 

She does not know how long she sits 
watching the sea’s courtship of the land 
— the obstacles that its patience over- 
comes. There is a ridge of sand between 
her and the rising tide ; it is with trouble, 
with many intervening discouragements,, 
with repeated efforts, that it climbs the 
sandy rise, and then joyfully and swiftly 
pours over its yeasty streams. Why does 
not the wave break all at once ? Instead 
of doing so it curls over in one place ; and 
then the curl runs along the line, until 
the whole proud breaker is dissolved into 
quick and hissing froth. Ah! this one 
has come farther than any of his prede- 
cessors — he is sucking in among the small 
stones at her very feet. 

“ ‘ The lightning of the noontide ocean 
Is flashing round me, and a tone 
Arises from its measured motion, 

How sweet did any heart now share in 
my emotion ! ’ ” 

She says this aloud, after a way that 
she has ; but her voice is so soft and the 
sea is so loud that no one, even if close 
to her, could hear the words. No sooner 
are they out of her mouth than she catch- 
es the sound of a footstep on the shingle 
behind her — a quick, firm step. What if 
it be Micky ? What if her poetic aspi- 
ration after companionship be all too 
soon answered? What if Micky be come 
to 

“ Share in her emotion? ” 

He is quite capable of it. She looks 
round in hasty fear, her features already 
beginning to dress themselves in the au- 
sterity with which yesterday she had 
chilled that brave man’s too easy greeting ; 
but there are other men in the world 
besides Micky Brand, and this is one of 
them. Not even in the most ill-lighted 
room, the dimmest evening light, could 


46 


JOAN. 


you mistake him for Mr. Brand, and, 
indeed, he would be very much disgusted 
with you if you did. It is Wolferstan. 
In a moment the austerity has fled, dis- 
persed and routed by a surprised red 
smile. 

“ ‘ ’Twas when the seas were roaring 
With hollow blasts .of wind, 

A damsel lay deploring 
All on a rock reclined ! ’ ” 

he says with a low laugh, that mixes 
pleasantly with the noise of the tumbling 
waves, as he gently and gayly takes her 
ready hand. 

“ But I am not ‘ on a rock,’ and I am 
not ‘ deploring,’ ” answers the girl, laugh- 
ing too. 

“ She told me that you had gone to 
Ilclmsley,” he goes on, presently, still 
prisoning in his her small, cool fingers, 
and looking at her with an intentness of 
scrutiny by no means inferior to Mr. 
Brand’s yesterday one (but which yet 
does not provoke in her at all the same 
chastely irate emotion), in his happy, 
handsome eyes ; “ but I took the liberty 
of disbelieving her ; I knew you had not.” 

“ Who told you that I had ? ” 

“ The servant at your — at Mrs. Mober- 
ley’s. I have been to pay you a visit.” 

“ And did you see any of them ? — My 
aunt — my cousins, I mean?” asks Joan, 
quickly and nervously, while the red hur- 
ries up to her cheeks. 

The smile on his face broadens, and 
his eyes light up mirthfully. 

“ I saw them, and I did not see them ; 
I think they saw me ; I think they were 
reconnoitring me from behind the blinds.” 
A moment later, still speaking playfully, 
but with a caressing tone in his low voice : 
“I knew you had not; I knew that I 
should find you here. After all, you see, 
though they are your relations and I am 
not, I know your ways better than they 
do.” 

A little pause, filled up by the wash 
of the morning waves, while the two 
young people are looking eagerly, and, as 
it were, half wonderingly, at each ether. 

• 


Though the space of time since they last 
met is so short, each seems altered in the 
other’s eyes. 

Joan is wondering that it had never 
before struck her what a sweet-toned 
voice he has; what a fine and polished 
enunciation ; what race-horse nostrils ! 
Can it be possible that in her former life 
all the men had sweet, full voices, pol- 
ished enunciations, fine-cut nostrils ? and 
is it the contrast to her present surround- 
ings — to the Moberley voices, accents, 
noses — that makes Wolferstan’s excel- 
lences start out with such new saliency? 
Perhaps it is the lovely setting of the pict- 
ure — the sea, the sky, the tawny sands — 
that makes it seem so goodly. One can- 
not gaze dumbly for more than five min- 
utes at a time at the handsomest live pict- 
ure without growing embarrassed, and so 
Joan finds. 

“ And you ? ” she says, presently, 
breaking shyly and hastily the happy si- 
lence ; “ what has brought- you here ? ” 

“Do you mean to say that you do not 
know ? ” (in a voice of low reproach). 
His eyes are still meeting hers ; it seems 
as if they would not let them go. 

She shakes her head. 

“You cannot even guess? ” 

“No.” 

“You can lay your hand upon your 
heart and tell me so ? ” 

It is a good opportunity for loosing 
her hand from its long bondage, so she 
does as he suggests, and laying her hand 
on that spot in her black dress, under 
which she feels the regular healthy puls- 
ing of her young heart, says : 

“ I cannot guess.” 

“ On your word ? ” 

“ On my word.” 

“On your honor"? ” 

“Do you wish,” says Joan, smiling 
gravely, “ to make me say that I think it 
was to see me that you have come down ? 
Is that what you are trying to drive me 
to?” 

“That is what I am trying to drive 
you to.” 


* JO AN. 


47 


It is now her turn to look reproach- 
ful, and with her the emotion is perhaps 
more genuine than it was with him. 

“ How much the better would you 
be,” she says, looking up at him with the 
limpid sincerity of her eyes, “ if you did 
succeed in making me say what you know 
as well as I do not to he true ? I think I 
have forgotten how to handy pretty 
speeches ; Hie' has grown so matter-of- 
fact, that I take everything au pied de la 
lettrey 

“ Is it a pretty speech ? ” he says, 
with an air of injured innocence which, 
if counterfeit, is certainly very ably done. 
“Unless you had suggested the idea, it 
would never have occurred to me that it 
was one ; and, after all, why should not 
a pretty speech be occasionally as true as 
an ugly one? Far be it from me to say 
that they are all true, or even” (laugh- 
ing) “that all mine are, God forbid! but 
this one — ” He stops expressively. 

She shakes her head disbelievingly, 
and, turning from him, sits gravely down 
again on the shingle. 

“ What other motive could have 
brought me ? ” he asks, eagerly, stretch- 
ing himself on the sand beside her. “ Do 
you think that it can be very amusing 
sitting down to dinner in a totally empty 
house, with no society but brown-hol- 
land-s waddled chairs and bagged chande- 
liers? with an elementary kitchen-maid 
to cook your dinner, and a charwoman 
to bring it you, do you ? ” waiting reso- 
lutely for an answer, but he gets none. 

Joan’s eyes are fixed on the broad 
band of wondrous purple that stretches 
in royal beauty across the mid-ocean; 
at the ineffable greens and blues, like the 
colors of a peacock’s neck, with which 
the waves are shot through and through. 

“ If you would be so good as to look 
at me,” he goes on, presently, with a tone 
of slight irritation, noting the direction 
of her eyes, which is not such as he either 
wishes or intends, “ you would see that, 
for once in my life, I am speaking truth ; 
well ” (after waiting a moment in vain), 


“ well 1 as you will not, I must trust to 
the veracity of my voice : as sure as — ” 
(looking vaguely round for something to 
adjure) “I do not think that I see any- 
thing particularly sure anywhere about, 
so I will use no asseveration — I came 
down ; I made a disagreeable journey at 
an inconvenient time ; I ran the risk of 
damp beds, and the certainty of bad din- 
ners, wholly and solely to see whether 
you were yet alive 1 ” A moment after, 
in a softened voice: “You know that 
transplantation kills some plants; how 
could I tell that you were not one? ” 

Joan laughs a little. “It would take 
a good deal more than that to kill me,” 
she says ; I am sure that I should be as 
hard to kill as an eel. I believe that if I 
were cut in two, each half of me would 
walk away unhurt, as they say is the case 
with some insects.” 

“ And you have overlived it ? ” he 
says slowly, with a genuine wonder in 
voice and eyes, as his thoughts revert to 
the peep he has lately taken at the Mo- 
berley establishment, over the grimy par- 
lor-maid’s shoulder, and behind the Mo- 
berley blinds. 

“It seems so.” 

“And you are — are — are getting on 
pretty well ? ” 

The question sounds inanely bald, and 
so it seems to himself ; but from the na- 
ture of the subject it is difficult to make 
it more precise. 

“Getting on I” repeats Joan, reflec- 
tively, with her blue eyes pensively fixed 
on a far red sail; “I am alive, as you 
say, and I am in very good health, and I 
am not beaten or starved ; on the con- 
trary, I am very kindly used ; if that is 
to be ‘ getting on ’ — yes — I am getting on 
nicely ! ” 

“And — and there is no change?” 
pursues the young man, embarrassed, but 
eager ; “ nothing — nothing pleasant has 
happened since we last talked ? ” 

She moves her eyes slowly from the 
distant brig, and fixes them with a half- 
ironical smile on his face. 


48 


JOAN/ 


“ Do you mean have I yet woke to 
find myself wealthy ? has any one left me 
a fortune? AVell, no! not yet! I am 
still luxuriating on my godfather’s thou- 
sand pounds.” A moment after, the 
smile on her face spreading, and growing 
into a soft laugh of genuine amusement : 
“I now know why you were so anxious 
that I should see Mrs. Moberley — no — do 
not look miserable ! I will promise not 
•to tell her ; and even if I did, she would 
not bear malice ; she is far too good-na- 
tured ! I have also ascertained the ex- 
tent of the park; the number of whose 
acres I was so determined to learn from 
you.” 

“ Do not ! ” cries the yourfg man has- 
tily, looking thoroughly foolish, growing 
extremely red, and galloping off 'centre 
d terre into a different subject. “No 
other will has been found, then ? ” 

“ None, except the old one, made be- 
fore I was born : I knew that there would 
not be : he meant to have added a codicil 
to it ; the lawyer was to have come down 
on the very day ! — twenty-four hours 
made a good deal of difference to my 
future, did not they ? ” 

She sighs profoundly, and, again turn- 
ing to the sea, fixes her eyes dejected 
and patient on the broad flood. 

“ How could he leave such a thing 
till the last moment ? ” cries the young 
man, with wondering anger ; “ what cul- 
pable — what inexcusable negligence ! ” 

She brings her eyes quickly back again 
to his face, but they are meek no longer ; 
instead, flaming and flashing. “Do you 
think it can make things much easier or 
pleasanter for me to bear,” she says, in- 
dignantly, “ to hear him abused ? When 
you say such things you make me regret 
that I have ever broached the subject to 
you ; how could he tell that it was the 
last moment ? he was only seventy-two ! 
people oftener than not live till eighty or 
ninety nowadays : he seemed no more 
likely to die than you do ; does any one 
ever think that he himself will die? he 
knows that every one else will, but he 


does not believe that he will ! ” After a 
moment, in a softer, gentler voice of deep- 
est emotion : “ My one prayer and trust 
is,” she says, “ that he does not know — 
that he cannot see ! Oh ! God could not 
let him see! it would be too cruel! it 
would break his heart! he that never 
thought anything could be good enough 
for me ! ” 

Her voice wavers and breaks. The 
tears crowd up into her eyes. A rather 
prolonged silence. Joan’s wet eyes go 
back to the sea, and absently watch the 
breakers, idly puzzled to see that a big 
wave with an imposing volume of brown 
water and noise of foamy froth sometimes 
does not reach as far as a lesser, humbler 
one that follows. It is she that at length 
resumes the conversation. Wolferstan, 
in fact, is feeling snubbed, and, though 
not exactly bearing malice, has no inten- 
tion of laying himself open to a second 
rebuke. 

“ Apart from any question of 
she says, thoughtfully, “ I wonder how 
I manage to be left so destitute ? At the 
time, I was too miserable to think or 
reason about it, but since then it has 
often puzzled me : my father must surely 
have had a younger son’s portion, and, as 
I was his only child, it would naturally 
come to me, would not it? I know 
nothing of the law, but it seems to me 
that it must be so.” 

She looks appealingly at him for con- 
firmation or contradiction ; but where 
are W olferstan’s manners ? Is he sulky 
or only inattentive ? He has turned quite 
away from her, and makes no answer, 
good or bad, to her appeal. She is too 
preoccupied much to heed his lapse from 
civility, and goes on : 

“Of course I can quite understand, 
now, why he never mentioned my moth- 
er’s family to me. I suppose there never 
was any one who knew less about his 
parents than I do ; I do not eTen know 
when and where they first met — when 
they were married — how long they lived 
together — ” 


JOAN. 


49 


She stops abruptly, becoming sud- 
denly aware of her auditor’s want of at- 
tention. His face is still quite turned 
away, and he has uttered no sound, good 
or bad. 

“You are bored by these details?” 
she says a moment later, after a rather 
hurt silence; “ and no wonder indeed! I 
beg your pardon, but — ” (with a rather 
desolate smile) — “ here I am so poor in 
friends, that, like the Ancient Mariner, 
I button-hole any stranger I chance to 
meet.” 

She rises to her feet as she speaks, and 
prepares to set off homeward. He must 
look round now — ^must utter. And he 
does. He also rises, and turns toward 
her the face that for the last five minutes 
he has been so carefully averting. It is 
redder than its wont. His countenance is 
troubled, and in his eyes is an expression 
she does not understand. But even now 
he makes no reference to the subject of 
her remarks. He only says in a con- 
strained voice : 

“ If you think I am bored you are mis- 
taken.” Then, a moment after: “Are 
you going home already ? Must you ? ” 

“Unless I wfish to lose my dinner,” 
she answers, with a smile. 

“ Y our luncheon, I suppose you mean?” 

“I mean my dinner; we dine at two 
— at least we oscillate between that and 
four.” 

“Good Heavens! — and is that all? 
Have you nothing else — nothing more to 
look forward to the whole of the live- 
long day ? ” 

“We have tea and muffins at eight — 
at least between that and ten.” 

“ Good Heavens ! ” (throwing back his 
handsome head and looking up in shocked 
appeal to the turquoise sky). 

“ And brandy and soda-water all day 
long, if we like it.” 

“ Good Heavens ! ” 

“I have hit the right chord now, have 
not I?” says Joan, with a smile of soft 
malice ; “ this is the one of my misfortunes 
that really touches you. You were bored 
4 


before” (with gentle persistence), “though 
you will not own it ; but now you are all 
interest and alert compassion. I have 
found the right way to your heart — to 
every man’s heart! ” 

They are walking slowly homeward, 
side by side, over the thin and bitter grass 
of the sand-hills, and back into the pleas- 
ant meads by which Joan had cOme. 

“You know you must not proportion 
your pity for me to what your own suf- 
ferings would be under a two-o’clock din- 
ner,” says Joan presently, vath a humor- 
ous smile. 

“ They would be severe, I own,” he 
answers, gravely. “I know no one, the 
pleasure of whose society would outweigh 
them; you, somehow, have a knack of 
making me speak the truth against my 
will, and I will own to you that I do not 
think I should enjoy dining at two o’clock, 
even with you.” 

She laughs a little; and again they 
walk on over half a field in silence. 

“ I hope,” says Joan, by-and-by, “that 
you will not go away with the impres- 
sion that I am a great object of compas- 
sion. I feel as if I had been giving you 
that idea, and indeed it is not the true 
one. No one can expect to go through 
all his life quite smoothly; and per- 
haps those are best off who have their 
troubles while they are young — one is so 
strong when one is young; probably I 
shall have a pi’osperous middle age, or a 
serene old age, or a very easy death, to 
make up to me — depend upon it, it will 
be made up to me in some way.” 

“By aserene old age,” cries Wolferstan, 
contemptuously. “God forbid! No! — 
take my word for it” — (looking down 
with a more unveiled admiration than he 
has yet allowed himself in the eyes, whose 
wickedness Bell Moberley commends, at 
the profile beside him — the little sensitive 
fine nose — ^the sweet white cheek, clear 
and clean as privet-flowers — ^the curled 
cherry lips) — “there is something better 
than that ahead of you. There is plenty 
of fun in life for such as you, between 


50 


JOAN. 


now and your serene old age ” (with a 
mocking accent). 

“Is there? ” says Joan, a little doubt- 
fully. “ I should not be sorry to think 
that there were — but if not I can do 
without it — I can do without it.” After a 
pause — “ it is impossible,” she says, in a 
more cheerful tone, “to be quite unhappy 
as long as one is thoroughly healthy, as 
long as one is honestly trying to do one’s 
best, and as long as one has a keen sense 
of the ridiculous. This world’s beauty ” 
(looking fondly at all the brave show of 
young greenery round her), “ this world’s 
beauty is a great boon, but I think that its 
little ridiculousnesses are a still greater ! 
There are very few things or situations 
in which I do not find something to make 
me laugh.” 

They have come to the end of the 
fields, have crossed the stile that leads 
back into the road. To arrive at Port- 
land Villa you must turn to the right, to 
reach Wolferstan’s home to the left. 

“We will say good-by here,” says 
Joan, gently but resolutely, holding out 
her hand. “ If you escorted me to the 
house Mrs. Moberley would invite you to 
luncheon, and you would find it difiicult 
to evade her importunities.” 

“Why should I evade them?” asks 
W olferstan, to whom the problem of how 
he is to pass the afternoon has been, for 
the last half-hour, growing ever more and 
more insoluble, and who has now grasped 
the desperate resolution of braving the 
Moberley food (indubitably very awful, if 
it all tallies with the appearance of the 
parlor-maid), yet sweetened by Joan’s 
smiles, and lit by the warm blue fire of 
Joan’s eyes. 

She shakes her head. 

“It would not amuse you, or, per- 
haps,” with a blush, “ it would amuse you 
too much; and it would annoy me ex- 
tremely. You will say good-by now, I 
am sure,” again making a confident prof- 
fer of her hand. This time he takes it. 

“You have left me no other word to 
say,” he answers, rather ruefully. 


She has lifted to his, in friendly fare- 
well the two chaste lamps of her clear, 
serious eyes — eyes well versed in tears, 
laughter, and tenderness, but unpractised 
in eye-manoeuvre, or finesse; eyes igno- 
rant of — or, if not, disdaining — the un- 
used weapons in their armory. Wolfer- 
stan looks back into them, down, down 
into their modest depths, to see whether 
no little devil lurks even at the very bot- 
tom of them. 

But no ! With an awe, slightly dashed 
by irritation, he has to own to himself, as 
he had to own at their last meeting at 
Bering, that he might be her grandfather. 
It is not often women look at him with 
such vestal eyes. Mostly he has found 
that the fire of his own, if not caught 
from women’s eyes, has, at least, proved 
catching to them ; but the flame in Joan’s 
might fitly burn on Bian’s altar. Would 
it be a worthy, as it would undoubtedly 
be an agreeable, task to put out this ves- 
tal fire and light another, warmer, if not 
so clear ? The idea is passing through his 
head, when she speaks and makes him 
ashamed of it. 

“ If you really came down from Lon- 
don, and subjected yourself to all the 
privations you told me of, only to see 
me — I wonder, did you really ? ” in a 
parenthesis of girlish curiosity ; “ thank 
you very much for it. If not— if, as I 
believe, that is only a fa^on de parler^ and 
you came down on some errand of your 
own, yet, still, thank you. I have thor- 
oughly enjoyed seeing you.” 

lie is very glad to hear it, but would 
have preferred that she should have been 
less able to tell him so. 

“Bo not say it in that solemn vale- 
dictory tone ! ” he answers, laughing 
lightly; “if you think that you are to 
be so easily quit of me, you are mis- 
taken. I have something of the gnat 
about me, I warn you! You always 
go to the shore in the morning, do not 
you ? ” 

She smiles and raises her eyebrows a 
little. 


51 


J 0 

^'‘Always! why, I have been here only 
two days.” 

“ But you went there yesterday morn- 
ing?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ About eleven o’clock ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ And you went to-day ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And you will go to-morrow ? ” in a 
tone more affirmatory than interrogative. 

“ By all the laws of analogy ! ” she 
answers, breaking into a gay laugh, and 
s<3r merrily takes leave. 


CHAPTER X. 

The dogs, cantering on ahead of her, 
have apparently given Miss Bering’s fam- 
ily notice of her approach, for, by the 
time she has reached the gate, she sees 
that they have aU come out to meet her. 

Mrs. Moberley, indeed, has advanced 
no farther than the door-step ; but the 
girls are at the gate. One is holding it 
open : the other is peeping round the 
gate-post down the road. By the ani- 
mation of their features and the unwonted 
sparkling of their eyes, it is clear that 
some more powerful motive than affec- 
tion for their returning kinswoman has 
brought them out to meet her. 

“We have such a piece of news fbr 
you I ” cry they both in a breath ; “we 
are not going to tell it you — you are to 
guess it — not that you ever will guess it ! ” 

“ And I have something for you — 
something belonging to you ! ” cries Bell, 
who is now discovered to be holding both 
hands behind her back. “Ah! if you 
knew what it was, you would not look 
so cool over it ! say which hand — right 
or left ? ” 

“ Right,” answers Joan, laconically, 
and “right” it apparently is, for Miss 
Bell’s plump hand unfolds itself to dis- 
close a man’s visiting card, upon which, 
on a closer survey, the name of “ Colonel 


AX. 

Wolferstan” is found to be legibly in- 
scribed. 

“ Xot a quarter of an hour after you 
were gone, he came,” goes on Bell, volu- 
bly ; “I thought that of course it must 
be Micky — that no one else would call so 
early, and I was just on the point of run- 
ning to open the door myself — just fancy 
if I had ! ” 

“ He had to ring four times before 
Sarah answered the bell,” says Diana, 
taking up the wondrous tale ; “ I was 
so much in hopes that he would ask 
for mother, when he found that you were 
out ; but he did not ; he asked, instead, 
where you had gone to ; and I heard 
Sarah telling him to Helmsley — what pos- 
sessed her I cannot think I it was just on 
the tip of my tongue to call out and say, 
‘ Xo, she has not 1 ’ but I just stopped 
myself in time.” 

“ AVe had a splendid view of him from 
behind the drawing-room blinds,” says 
Bell, in antistrophe ; “ I could not have 
wished for a better I ” 

“ Bell would put her head so far out 
of the Diana, complain- 

ingly; “say what I would to her! he 
must have seen her — he could not have 
helped ! ” 

“ I know he did,” rejoins Bell, color- 
ing, but complacent ; “ our eyes met ; I felt 
that I went so red all in a minute ! ” After 
a pause : “If he is very anxious to see 
you, I should not wonder if he dropped 
in again later on; do you think there 
is any likelihood of it ? do you think it is 
likely, Joan ? we may as well stay in-doors 
all the afternoon, on the chance.” 

“I would not if I were you,” says 
Joan, dryly ; “ it would be labor lost ; 
if he had any anxiety to see me it has 
been gratified, for he overtook me on the 
shore.” 

“ And^you have been sitting on the 
beach with hirfl ? ” cry both together, 
breathless and awe-struck. 

“ Yes.” 

“All this time?” 

“ All this time.” 


52 


JOAN. 


“ How I wish now that I had gone 
with you this morning ! ” cries Bell, re- 
morsefully ; “ but who would have 

thought it? all these years I have never 
met a creature on the shore — never ! ” 

“ You know I always said that I did 
not dislike the sea as much as you did I 
did not I, Joan ? ” says Diana, in a tone 
of triumph, at having her toleration for 
the deep so signally justified. 

“ Is he there still, should you think ? ” 
says Bell, in a rather languishing voice, 
and with her head slightly but sentimen- 
tally on one side; “did you leave him 
there ? or did he come with you part of 
the way hack ? ” 

“ Our road home was the same, you 
know I ” answers Joan, blushing faintly ; 
“ so, of course, we came as far as the last 
stile together.” 

“Why did not you bring him in to 
luncheon? ” asks Mrs. Moberley hospita- 
bly ; having, by this time, descended from 
the door-step and slowly advanced to join 
her family ; “ poor fellow ! it would have 
been a charity — all alone in that big 
house! I think we might have. kept his 
spirits up among us — eh, girls ? ” 

“ Thank God you did not ! ” says Di- 
ana, in a devout aside ; then in a louder 
key: “Probably, mother, Joan bore in 
mind what you announced to us this 
morning, that there is nothing but a 
sheep’s head for dinner 1 ” 

“No more there is! ” says Mrs. Mo- 
berley, contentedly ; “ the butcher is late 
with the meat, as usual, so we have to 
make it out with odds and ends ! ” 

“Fancy asking Anthony Wolferstan 
to sit down to a sheep’s head ! ” cries 
Bell, laughing affectedly. “ I should have 
expired! ” 

“ I dare say that he has often sat down 
to a worse thing! ” answers 1^-s. Mober- 
ley, sturdily. “Dear me! how a sheep’s 
head does take me back To former times ! 
how your poor father did love a sheep’s 
head ! never a week passed that we did 
not have one ! ” 

“ From all the anecdotes that you tell 


us of him, I think that father must have 
had rather gross tastes ! ” says Diana, 
calmly. 

“ To think that a quarter of an hour 
should have made such a difference!” 
says BeU, still unable to tear herself from 
the original theme — “ all the difference — 
if he had been a quarter of an hour ear- 
lier, or you had been a quarter of an hour 
later, he would have come in, and you 
would have been obliged to introduce him 
to us ; I must say that I should dearly 
like to know him, if it were only enough 
to be able to bow to him when we meet 
him in the road.” 

It is not often in April, and in the 
first half of April too, that one sees five 
consecutive days of honeyed warmth, and 
strong summer shining ; but it is so this 
year. The mighty young light next 
morning pouring into Joan’s eyes, and 
waking her at an unearthly hour, when 
even the birds speak sleepily, shows her 
that not yet is there any lessening of the 
kingly beauty of the weather. Her first 
taste of the morning wind at her wide- 
flung window tells her that there is no 
touch of shrewish east in it. She looks 
out yawningly toward her friend the 
sea, and, so lookin^^, ceases to yawn and 
smiles instead, at some recollection ap- 
parently. 

“He is the last link that connects 
m*e with civilization,” she says ; “ that is 
what gives him a factitious value; it 
would have been just as pleasant sitting 
there with any other of my old friends ” 
— (running over in her head a rather 
long list) — “ yes — just as pleasant! ” So 
saying she goes back to bed, and, still 
smiling, falls asleep again. 

Later on, after breakfast, she is again 
wistfully eying the ocean ; leaning against 
the gate-posts, surrounded by the dogs, 
who are asking as plainly as short, 
excited barks and pathetically-goggling 
eyes can ask, whether she is going out to 
walk, and, if so, why she has not put lifer 
hat on. She is asking herself the same 


JOAN. 


53 


question. tShall she go to tlie sea-shore, 
after all? Were Wolf erstan still in Lon- 
don she undoubtedly would. Why, then, 
should she let his goings or comings in- 
fluence or constrain hers ? How winning 
the fresh fields would look ! How in- 
teresting it would be to see how much 
the young wheat-blades have sprung since 
this time yesterday ! and how many more 
marsh marigolds h«,ve lit their brave gold 
fire by the little swampy pool in the 
meadow! And the sea! There is less 
wind to-day. To-day there would be no 
white horses tossing their snow-crests ; 
no noisy breakers riotously tumbling; 
only an unbounded stretch of burnished 
silver, panting as in some great love-ec- 
stasy. 

She half closes her eyes, and with in- 
ward vision longingly sees the unnum- 
bered curves, losing themselves in one 
another; the dreamy ripple creeping to 
her feet ; the green mermaid’s hair afloat 
on the tide ; the warm sands ; and across 
them Wolferstan, stepping to meet her, 
with his low laugh, and his welcoming 
eyes. At the thought of his, her own 
reopen rather quickly. 

“ And you will go there to-morrow ? ” 

The confidence of tone, the almost 
certainty with which he spoke these 
words, reechoes in her ears. Why was 
he so sure that she would go'? After all, 
what could Bell or Di do worse than 
hurry off at the first beck to meet their 
Bob or M»ky at a given rendezvous ? 

“ Now that I am poor, and of no rep- 
utation, I must hold my head a great deal 
higher, and more stiffly than I did in my 
palmy days ! I will not go ! ” So say- 
ing, she turns resolutely away, •and re- 
enters the house. 

The dogs see that hope is extinct, and, 
dropping their tails and voices, seek other 
avocations. Mr. Brown retires to the 
flower-bed, and begins to dig up a bone 
that he had wisely buried there yester- 
day, as a precaution against moments of 
ennui. Kegy strolls down the road in 
search of one he loves ; and of the other 


four it is only needful to say that they 
have caught sight of the end of the tail of 
the Oampidoglio cat. In-doors Joan finds 
all haste, bustle, and millinery. Early 
this morning arrived an unexpected sum- 
mons to bliss and barracks for the happy 
Misses Moberley ; at least, the next best 
thing to barracks — a garden-party and 
dance afterward, given by the colonel’s 
wife. By superhuman exertions, by press- 
ing into their service every living thing 
on the premises, the Misses Moberley 
hope that, by four ol^Jock in the after- 
noon, their new alpacas will have been 
fashioned into something so like a resem- 
blance to one of Joan’s g^wns as to enable 
them, without too flagrant a violation of 
truth, to tell their friends that they are 
made on a Paris pattern. The establish- 
ment being wholly female, every member ^ 
of it, without exception, is stitching. 
Even the cook has been commanded to 
lay aside all thoughts of pots and pans, 
and exchange her professional ^cewer for ’ ■ 
a needle. For a few moments Joan stands 
by in rueful silence, eying her martyred 
jgfiwn, which is being pulled about, meas- 
ijjlbd, pried into, unpicked a little here 
and there. Then she conquers herself 
and offers to help. 

“Do you mean to say that you can 
sew ? ” asks Bell, with a little shrill laugh ; 

“I should have thougl^jb that you were 
the sort of girl that would have been 
waited upon, hand and foot, and would 
never have set a stitch for yourself ! ” 

“ Appearances are deceitful, then ! ” 
answers Joan, quietly, sitting down, and 
settling resolutely to a long morning of 
feminine toil. And a very long morning 
it is. With no break of intervening din- 
ner, it stretches away indeed into the 
afternoon. The room grows hot and the 
air confined, for, Mrs. Moberley having 
mislaid her big pair of scissors, no one is 
able to open the French window. By 
long stooping over her work, the blood 
not only seems to rush to her ^ad but to 
stay there. She drops her stitcBig at last, 
and lifts both hands to her hot forehead. 


54 


JOAN. 


“I must say that it is rather hard 
upon Joan having all the work and none 
of the fun I ” says Mrs. Moberley, com- 
passionately, having herself come to a 
temporary pause in her labors, and being 
in the act of fanning herself with a sheet 
of the Young Ladies’ Journal; “ though, 
for my part, why you should not make 
one of us to-day, Joan, I cannot see ; of 
course a grandfather would stand in the 
way of a public ball, or any such great 
formal do-ment — 1 am the last to say that 
he would not ; bui^'a little friendly frolic 
like this — no sit-down supper nor any- 
thing — nothing but ices and claret-cup, 
you may depend — and all got up in a 
moment too.” 

Joan shakes her head wearily. 

“ I had rather not, if you do not 
mind.” 

“ Oh, please yourself, and you will 
please me ! ” rejoins Mrs. Moberley, weav- 
ing the Young Ladies^ Journal with a 
rather irrigated air ; “but I will say this, 
that who it is you take after I do not 
know. It certainly is not your poor 
mamma ; she would have gone barefyik 
thirty miles any day for the chance o^r 
raise ! ” 

It is half -past four o’clock before the 
Moberley family, having snatched a hasty 
cold refreshment from a tray — having 
triumphantly endued the just finished al- 
pacas — stand ready to depart. Diana’s 
head is surmounted by Micky’s hat, from 
which the bird-of-paradise’s ample tail 
floats bold and challenging as ever. It is 
too hot for Bobby’s jacket; so in this 
respect — having nothing to correspond to 
the hat — Arabella labors under an inferi- 
ority to her sister. 

“ I have seen w^orse-looking girls once 
or twice, have not you, Joan ? ” says Mrs. 
Moberley, regarding her offspring with a 
playful complacency. “ Quite the thing, 

I declare! As soon as you are out of 
mourning — three months, or six, will it 
be ? very^j^ely six, as you have, got such 
a good stock of black by you — but as 
soon as you are out, I do not see why 


you should not all dress alike. There is 
nothing that looks better than three styl- 
ish girls pin for pin alike ; they set each 
other off.” 

They are gone now. With unfurled 
parasols and flying ribbons, they are sail- 
ing gloriously down the road. Joan 
strolls into the garden, and, standing on 
the broken pedestal of the old sun-dial, 
lays her hot cheek against the welcome 
coolness of its stained and ancient face. 
Then she lifts her head and reads again 
the short and half-effaced inscription, 
“ Tempus fugit! ” 

“ That must be my comfort,” she says, 
sighingly ; “ everything passes, nothing 
stays I Let us do right, and, w^hether 
happiness come or unhappiness, it is no 
very mighty matter. If it come, life will 
be sweet ; if it do not come, life will be 
bitter — bitter, not sweet, and yet to be 
borne.” 

These brave words are not Joan’s 
own. Still, the very uttering of them 
makes her feel stronger. She puts on her 
hat and sets off for a long w^alk— not to 
the sea, however — she turns her back 
stoically upon it ; to-morrow she will 
return thither. To-morrow the yellow^ 
sands will be again untrodden wastes, 
disturbed by no quick young foot, prob- 
ably, but her ow'n. But to-day she wTll 
abstain. 

She rambles aimlessly away with no 
other guiding impulse than the desire to 
avoid Helmsley, and the determination 
to keep away from the ocean. She fol- 
lows the dogs’" noses more than any other 
leader. Where the rabbit-scent is strong- 
est thither they take her. After a while 
she fluffs herself in a little still wood, 
alone. Only the sound of rustled leaves 
and a small squeaking bark of utter ex- 
citement now and then tell her that her 
companions are still within hail, and are 
in zealous pursuit of the ground-game of 
somebody unknown. 

It would be a useless waste of voice 
to call them, for they certainly would not 
obey. So with a sigh of content she sits 


JOAN. ' 


55 


down on the warm, dry, leafy bed, and 
leans her still aching head against the 
smooth stem of a young beech-tree. She 
has taken off her hat and bared her fore- 
head to the light handling of the baby 
winds. AYith a sense of deep, thorough 
peace and enjoyment, she looks about 
her — at the sticky horse-chestnut buds 
beginning to break into crumpled leaf ; at 
the wood-anemones, pure as snow-drops 
but not half so cold, lifting their fine white 
heads and delicate green collars ; at the 
primroses blossoming out in pale life from 
among the dead oak-leaves, brown and 
curled. 

Apparently, however, solitary peace 
is not to be her portion for long. Not 
more than five or ten minutes has she 
been resting in dreamy tranquillity, when 
a step, heavier than the dogs’ light scam- 
pering patter, troubles the quiet of the 
wood — some game-keeper, probably, just- 
ly irate at the invasion of his covers and 
the disturbance of his pheasant’s-eggs. 
Well, if she is to be scolded, she may as 
well be scolded sitting as standing. So 
she neither rises nor changes her posi- 
tion. With cheek leaned against the beech- 
bark, she awaits the on-comer’s advent. 
Nearer, nearer, the quick foot-falls come ; 
he means to pass close beside her — he 
does not mean to pass by her at all — he' 
has stopped. With a half -frightened start 
she looks up. After all, she might as well 
have gone to the sea. 

“No man can be more wise than des- 
tiny.” It is Wolferstan ! 


CHAPTER XI. 

“ How about the laws of analogy ? ” 
he asks, taking off his hat, and looking 
rather angry ; “ what has become of them 
since yesterday ? ” 

She looks up, smiling subtilely. 

“ They are temporarily suspended.” 

The sweet carnation color that sur- 
prise and half fright have sent flying up 


into her cheeks is kept prisoner tliere by 
pleasure. After a moment : “Hid you real- 
ly expect to meet me there ? ” she asks. 

Her smile is catching. A reflection 
of it brightens the young man’s aggrieved 
features. 

“If I had any self-respect I should 
answer ‘ No ; ’ but as I have not, I wiil 
confess to you that ‘ yes, I did! ’ ” 

“And you went there yourself? ” 

“ Of course.” 

“And waited some time? ” 

“About two hours, I should think,” 
replies the young man, gravely ; “I built 
three large sand-castles, and saw two of 
them washed away ; and I collected more 
cockle-shells than I ever saw together in 
my whole life before.” 

“Et puis?” 

“ Puis — I gave it up as a bad job — par- 
ticularly as I was becoming an object of 
ridicule to three little boys and a nursery- 
maid ; then I took my stand at that stile 
that commands* the Helrasley road# and 
your house ; I thought, from the little I 
knew of you, that not even to avoid mo 
could you stay mewed up in-doors all such 
a day as this ; then I saw the Misses Mo- 
berley and their mamma set forth, ar- 
rayed like Solomon in all his glory. Then 
I ventured a little nearer, and watched 
you collect your dogs and set off — by-the- 
by, may I sit down near you ? — at least a 
great way off — just within ear-shot ? or, 
if I do, will you at once* get up and walk 
away ? ” 

She laughs a little. 

“Do not bo afraid! I am far too 
comfortable to stir.” 

“I stalked you stealthily,” pursues 
Wolferstan, resuming his narrative; “I 
knew that if I ventured to overtake you, 
you would turn back, reenter the house, 
and give me my conge with as cold-blooded 
and inexorable a gentleness as you did 
yesterday.” 

“ You are very persistent! ” she says, 
looking at him with a slow, serious smile ; 
“ such perseverance, directed to worthier 
objects, might make you do great things.” 




66 


JOAN. 


“ When one has come one hundred 
and twenty miles to see one pair of — I 
mean to attain one object,” answers the 
young man, emphasiziug his words by the 
steady fire of his look, “ one is hardly 
content to go away without having suc- 
ceeded, at least in some measure, in it.” 

The flush on Joan’s face has hitherto 
amounted only to a fair, cool pink ; now 
it strengthens to a hot, red glow of indig- 
nation ; quite as beautiful to look at, but 
not nearly so comfortable to the wearer. 

“May I beg of you not to make me 
any pretty speeches ? ” she says, hurriedly ; 
“I cannot tell you how they humiliate 
me! I never was fond of them in my 
good days — never; but now — now I dis- 
like them far more than ever I did ! ” 
(giving one blue flash out of her eyes at 
him, and then hastily looking away). “ If 
I were an unsophisticated country girl of 
seventeen, I could understand your think- 
ing that they would please me ; but I am 
surpMsed at your imagining that a woman 
who has been three — nearly four years in 
the world — your own world, should be so 
credulous 1 ” 

“I stand reproved,” answers Wolfer- 
stan, quietly ; “ I am aware that in society 
it is nearly as rude to tell persons that 
you like them as that you dislike them. 
I withdraw the obnoxious statement; I 
came down to see that the rooms were 
kept properly aired.” 

She smiles a little against her will. 

“If you really mean to be a friend to 
me,” she continues presently, in a rather 
appeased tone, and looking at him with 
the direct and open honesty of her eyes — 
“ and, indeed, I am very willing that you 
should be so — I am not so rich in them 
that I can afford to throw away one — but 
if you do, will you promise to treat me 
exactly as you would a man-friend ? you 
would not — ” (blushing again a little, but 
quite slightly and pleasantly) — “ you 
would not compliment a man-friend on 
the color of his eyes, would you?” 

lie laughs. 

“ Probably not.” 


“ Then exercise the same forbearance 
toward me ! ” she says, gayly yet earnestly; 
“if you do, it will put me into much bet- 
ter humor both with myself and you ; will 
you promise me — will you? ” 

“Promise to look upon you as a man ? ” 
says Wolferstan, leaning his back against 
a stalwart oak, that, as yet, holds forth no 
sign of summer clothing, and answering 
her with a gravity equal to her own ; “no, 
I do not think I can ; if you knew what 
men are, you would not wish me to do so ! 
— promise to refrain from pretty speeches 
to you? — willingly ! ” 

“It is a bargain, then I ” she cries, 
merrily, stretching out her hand frankly 
to him ; “ let us shake hands upon it I but 
mind — at the first complimentary allusion 
to the shape of my nose, or the color of 
my hair, our friendship dissolves, smashed, 
splintered into a thousand fragments.” 

“And now,” says Wolferstan, laugh- 
ing gayly, and diminishing by a couple of 
yards the space that he had at first osten- 
tatiously put between them ; “ now that 
you have prescribed your conditions, I am 
going to prescribe — no 1 that is much too 
courageous a word — going meekly to sug- 
gest mine.” 

She smiles a little suspiciously. 

“ It is a thousand pounds to one penny 
that I do not accept them 1 ” 

“ Let us suppose that you are the man- 
friend that you are so anxious to be, and 
that I am not at all anxious that you 
should be, and that I had made an ap- 
pointment to meet you in Pall Mall, to 
which you had agreed, would you at once 
set off for Seven Dials? ” 

She laughs mischievously. 

“ I think it is more than probable.” 
“You are forgetting that you are a 
man,” says Wolferstan, gravely, “and that 
the privilege of snapping your fingers at 
common -"sense,' and producing effects 
without causes, is wholly feminine.” 

“ Then I will not be a man ! ” she cries, 
a little petulantly; “away with my toga 
mrilis ! I resume my distaff.” 

“If I am to be a friend,” continues 




JOAN. 


57 


■NYolferstan, more earnestly, and beating 
out Ms proposition with the forefinger of 
one hand on the palm of the other, “I 
will not be treated as an enemy — there is 
no logic in it ; I will not be suspected and 
shunned ! What harm — ” (speaMng more 
quickly and eagerly, and looking into her 
attentive face) — “ what harm do you 
think I am planning you ? As I live, I 
have no thought or wish but for your 
good and pleasure — and my own ! ” (in 
a lowered voice, with an after-thought of 
candor). “ Placed as we are — as chance 
has placed us — we may considerably 
sweeten each other’s lives ; why, in Heav- 
en’s name, should not we ? ” 

Her eyes are fixed in grave inquiry, 
asking for explanation, on his, but she 
says nothing. 

“Do not think,” he continues, “that 
I overrate my own worth in your eyes, 
or that I think that you see charms in me 
which you have never given me reason to 
suppose that you do ; if the old state of 
things still continued, I am aware that I 
should have no value at all — I should be 
one of a mob, as I always used to be ; but 
now, as you said yesterday, I am the last 
fragment left of the good old life — your 
last connecting link with civilization — is 
not it so ? ” 

Her eyelids droop over her sad eyes. 

“Yes,” she says, sighingly. 

“ Any society procurable there^^"' he 
goes on, indicating by a gesture the direc- 
tion where Helmsley smoke, turned gold 
by the sun, hangs against the sky, “I 
warn you beforehand, that you will not 
be able, for one moment, to tolerate.” 

“ You are mistaken,” she answers, res- 
olutely ; “ henceforth I do not mean to 
allow myself any fine-lady squeamish- 
ness. I wince now, because these are 
early days ; by-and-by I shall not wince,” 

He shakes his head. 

“You have been transplanted too late ; 
you will never take kindly to the soil.” 

An expression of pain crosses her face. 

“If it is so, what is the use of telling 
me ? ” she cries, reproachfully. “ I am in 


the soil, and, whether I flourish or whether 
I wither, here I must stay, at least for the 
present.” After a moment’s pause: “I 
had rather not talk about it ; things talked 
about and discussed gain a substance and 
importance that they never have when 
they are not put into words. Things that 
must be, must ; if you ” (looking at him 
with a slightly satirical smile) “ were to 
fall down from your high estate, you 
would find that it would not kill you ; you 
would find yourself alive at the bottom of 
the hill. I have found myself alive.” 

A silence — at least as much silence as 
there ever can be in a spring wood. 

Some of the dogs have come back, 
and now lie on the leafy, primrosy bed, 
with their fawn-sides heaving, and their 
tongues hanging out sideways surprising- 
ly far. Mr. Brown, whose increasing 
ernbonpoint has told upon his wind, lays 
his puckered face on Joan’s black lap, and 
falls sweetly, if snoringly, asleep. 

Joan’s eyes are fixed on a spot where, 
through the still bare oak-boughs, she can 
see a nation of Lent lilies spreading over 
a neighboring field : fair Lent lilies — 
April fine ladies with their pale-yellow 
gowns, and their deeper - yellow petti- 
coats. Her heart is echoing Wolferstan’s 
words — “ You will never take kindly to 
the soil.” No, never. She will always 
be a blanched, sickly plant, like a gera- 
nium in a town cellar. What is it that 
gives her this sense of well-being, of 
smooth comfort and pleasure, in Wolfer- 
stan’s society ? 

As far as wisdom is concerned, any 
or all of his remarks might have been ut- 
tered by Micky Brand ; nor has he needed 
reprimanding for over-civility, less than 
did that other hero. And yet how 
soothed — how much at home she feels 
with him! The certainty of immunity 
from underbred Jests, of having her al- 
lusions understood, and of being on the 
same plane of thought, makes her feel 
that, though an inscrutable destiny has 
poured blood of the same quality into her 
veins and those of the Moberleys, yet 


58 


JOAN. 


by every law of affinity slie is mucb 
more nearly akin to the young man ly- 
ing in tlie gold sunshine at her feet. 
Advantages in him which before had 
passed unnoticed — taken for granted — 
now start out in delightful prominence. 
The quality of his voice — the purity of 
his provincialisms — these it is which con- 
trast so blessedly with the loud and twan- 
gy pronunciations of her relatives — her 
relatives — whose every laugh, yawn, 
sneeze, sets her teeth on edge. 

The object of her thoughts breaks in 
upon them by saying : 

“My people will be down here by 
the end of July ; they generally stay here 
most of the autumn. I do not at all prom- 
ise that you will like them. My father, 
poor old man, is not in a condition to be 
either liked or disliked, as, perhaps, you 
have heard ; and my mother — no ” (with 
a little reflective smile) — “ I cannot even 
promise that you will be very much de- 
lighted with her, but they mostly have 
the house full of pleasant people ; and, if 
you will let us hold out the right hand of 
fellowship to you, I think we may make 
your life a shade more endurable. Of 
course” (with a slight shrug), “if you 
resolutely set up your quills against us, 
we can do nothing.” 

She shakes her head. 

“ If you are a fish,” she says, a little 
doggedly, “ it is best to stay in the water ; 
if a bird, in the air. If you have sunk to 
a lower level, it is wiser to keep to it, and 
not to be standing on tiptoe straining up 
to the heights you have left.” 

He looks a little disappointed. 

“You refuse the right hand of fellow- 
ship, then ? ” 

“ No, I do not,” she says, sorrowfully. 
“ If I were wise I should ; but I suppose 
that one is greedy of pleasure. Most 
likely, if your mother holds it out, I shall 
snatch at it; but” (in a lighter tone) 
“she has not done so yet. It will be 
time enough to talk about it when she 
does.” 

Another silence — a silence gently. 


dreamily sad on the part of the girl; 
pleasantly and rather affectionately re- 
flective on the part of the man; serenely 
somnolent on the part of the dogs. As 
usual, the dogs have the best of it. It is 
broken at last by Joan, not because she 
wishes to speak, or has anything special 
to say, but because she feels that, how- 
ever great may be the strides that her in- 
timacy with Wolferstan has lately taken, 
she does not yet know him well enough 
to sit beside him in that total silence 
which is the privilege only of perfect 
friendship or assured love. 

“Are you down here — I mean, at the 
Abbey — ^much?” she asks, presently. 

He shakes his head, and stretches out 
a lazy hand to pat Mr. Brown’s fat 
flank. 

“ Not much ; not nearly so much as I 
should be, only that, whenever I do come 
down, mother and I always manage to 
fall out about one and the same subject. 
The fact is ” (laughing slightly, and look- 
ing with a faintly-heightened color at 
the girl’s serene face) — “ the fact is, that 
she is always worrying me to marry; 
why, I cannot understand, as in any case 
she has my brother to fall back upon: a 
range^ gray-headed boy, who, unlike me, 
never follows wandering fires.” 

“And you do not feel able to oblige 
her?” asks Joan, with an expression of 
friendly interest, looking back at him 
with a perfectly unembarrassed smile, 
which, unknown and certainly uncon- 
fessed to himself, rather annoys him. 

Again he shakes his head, and laughs. 

“To my thinking the laws of mar- 
riage require a good deal of modification, 
before they are adapted to the needs of 
so advanced a civilization as ours.” A 
moment later, speaking with an almost 
ir^-itated quickness and eagerness : 
“What, in Heaven’s name, is it about 
you that makes me, against my will, ad- 
mit to you truths that I know will lower 
me in your estimation? Perhaps 
(laughing a little restlessly) — “perhaps 
if you sat with your back to me I might 


JOAN. 


59 


lapse into my usual gently inventive 
vein. I think that it is your eyes that — 
no — ” (seeing her hold up her finger in 
warning) — “ it is no infringement of our 
bargain — it is nothing complimentary — 
rather the reverse — to tell you that your 
eyes are rigidly truthful and truth -com- 
pelling.” 

“ Perhaps it will be safer to abstain 
from any remarks at all about them,” 
answers Joan, with a rather cold smile. 
“ Let us suppose that I have no eyes.” 

“With all my heart,” rejoins he, 
laughing. “ Five minutes ago we agreed 
that you were a man, now you are a 
blind man. I shudder to think of what 
you may become in the course of the next 
five minutes.” Another pause ; then 
Wolferstan resumes with some heat his 
original theme. “ Imagine swearing to 
love any woman, or, in a woman’s case, 
any man, half a century hence, as warmly 
as you do now ; when I look back ten 
years and see how in that short space 
every idea, feeling, opinion, is changed or 
modified, how can I expect that at the 
end of fifty or sixty years one remnant 
of the original I will be left? Half a 
century ! always opposite the same face, 
always fond, always faithful, it is ” — 
(throwing his eyes upward to the brown 
tree-roof above him) — “ it is a monstrous 
thing to ask of any human being.” 

He looks at Joan in half-laughing, half- 
serious appeal, but neither eyes nor mouth 
give him any hint of her agreement or 
disagreement. The one is shut, the oth- 
ers are down-dropped to the primroses in 
her lap, and with her fingers she is lov- 
ingly stroking their downy stalks. 

“ One might as well,” pursues the 
young man, beginning to curl Mr. 
Brown’s tail (relaxed in slumber) round 
his finger, and thereby waking and vex- 
ing him — “one might as well swear to 
have all one’s teeth in one’s jaws, or all 
o^’s hair pn one’s head, at the end of 
the same period ; the one seems to me 
quite as much within one’s own power 
as the other.” 


Still no word or sign of assent or dis- 
sent. 

“ When I say a thing,” continues the 
young man, speaking more gravely, while 
the faithless light of his gray eyes steadies 
to a more serious shining — “I mean, 
when I say it soberly and solemnly, I 
like to be able to persuade at least myself 
that I mean it, and am going to stick to 
it ; if” — (reddening a little) — “ if I, as I 
now am, were to swear to love any one 
woman wholly and exclusively for the 
rest of my natural life, I should feel that 
I was the most consummate ruffian in 
existence ; for I should know that I was 
swearing a lie ! Do you now see why I 
cannot oblige my mother ? ” 

She nods slightly. 

“ Yes, I see ! ” 

She has risen to her feet, and so stands 
tall and willowy. The flame-eyed west 
sun is boldly kissing her swart clothes 
and her milky throat, and her red lips ; 
and the ruflfed anemones are crowding 
about her feet, 

“ And you think that I am right ? ” 
cries the young man, eagerly snatching, 
as if involuntarily, at the hand that, 
loosely drooping by her side, hangs near- 
est to him, and locking it, with all its 
crushed primroses, in his firm young clasp. 

“ I think,” she says, with a slow, soft 
smile, while her blue eyes rest gently, 
coolly, sweetly, on the restless fire of 
his — “ I think that a day will come when 
you will change your tune ; when you 
will blame the fifty years for being too 
short, not too long; at least, for your 
sake, I hope that it will ! ” 


CHAPTEPw XH. 

“ It seems to be filways good-by ! ” 
Wolferstan is saying, a little ruefully. 

Together they have strolled slowly 
home through the dew-crisped meadows. 
Together they have watched the sun’s 
nightly swoon — what so quickly rises 


CO 


JOAN. 


again into life, cannot be called death — 
and praised his parting benediction to 
the courtier clouds. 

Together they now stand in the dusty 
road at the gate of Portland Villa. Joan 
smiles soberly. 

“ ‘ How do you do ? ’ would lose all 
his charm — specially in men’s eyes — if 
they did not know that his brother 
‘ Good - by ’ treads so hard upon his 
heels.” 

“ They are not come back yet,” says 
Wolferstan, surveying with his eyes the 
front of the house — silent windows, and 
closed door ; “ if they were ” (smiling), 
“ I feel sure that I should see some indi- 
cation of them, as I did yesterday morn- 
ing.” 

“ I did not expect them,” answers 
Joan ; “ they have gone to a dance ; they 
will not be back till two or three 
o’clock.” 

“ And you will be alone all evening? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“And” (in a rather lowered voice), 
“ and I shall be alone all evening ! ” 

“ Yes.” 

If he had contemplated proposing any 
plan that should entail their not being 
alone all evening, something, either in 
her face or in her “ yes,” makes him 
change his mind. 

“ Which is your window ? ” he asks, 
lifting his eyes to the upper story. “ I 
should be sorry to mistake Mrs. Mober- 
ley’s for it; I shall be passing by to- 
morrow morning on my way to the sta- 
tion before you are awake ; and though I 
shall see only your blinds — ” 

“You will certainly not see them,” 
answers Joan, laughing; “for I have 
none ; they fell to pieces ten years ago, 
and have never since been replaced.” 

A moment’s silence. The wind is 
making a soft sighing bustle in the hedge, 
and the distant Ilelmsley churches chime 
eight. 

“You will not send me a line now 
and then, I suppose?” suggests Wolfer- 
stan diffidently, leaning on the gate. 


“ Certainly not.” 

“ Not even if you are in any trouble ? ” 

“I cannot imagine any trouble in 
which you would be able to help me,” 
she answers, gravely; “if I were sick, I 
could not ask you to nurse me ; if I were 
starving, I could not ask you for bread.” 

“ Then why caU me friend? ” cries the 
young man, hotly ; “ what is the use of an 
empty name in which there is no mean- 
ing ? ” 

She smiles a little teasingly. 

“ As you say, what use ? — let us drop 
it! ” 

“ If,” continues the young man, eager- 
ly — “if, by-and-by — not very soon — I 
run down again to — to — see whether the 
rooms are kept aired ” — (laughing a lit- 
tle) — “ will there be any chance — is it 
likely that — that the laws of analogy will 
have resumed their sway? ” 

“Do you mean,” she answers, smiling, 
yet gravely, whilo her look meets his, 
full-eyed and collected — “do you mean 
shall I be likely to make appointments to 
meet you on the shore ? — most assuredly 
not ! — I know nothing more unlikely ; if 
we meet accidentally — reaUy accidentally 
— not accidentally on purpose ” — (laugh- 
ingly) — “ I shall be delighted ; I like to 
see you : it gives me pleasure ; as I have 
told you till you must be tired of hearing 
it, you are the last connecting link be- 
tween me and my good old life ! ” 

He makes an impatient gesture with 
his foot, which, had he been a child, would 
have been called a stamp. 

“ I am tired of being a link,” he says, 
petulantly; “I will not be a link any 
longer ! it sounds as if I were a high-class 
ape 1 when — in how much time — shall I 
stand upon my own merits ? in how many 
months — years — will you be glad to see 
me because I am 7, and for no tedious 
second reasons ? ” 

“Ah 1 when ? ” she echoes, playfully ; 
and so, with no further good-by, quie^ 
eludes him, and, slipping through the gWe 
and into the house, disappears. 


JOAN. 


61 


It is next morning. Wolferstan is 
gone, and has taken the summer weather 
with him. It is not the sun that wakes 
her to-day; hut the sound of "VYolfer- 
stan’s wheels, rolling sharply through her 
dreams. Cautiously hidden behind her 
curtains, so that not a tip of nose or end 
of eyelash may be seen, she watches him 
bowl past; while the chill rain drives 
into his eyes, tries to put out his cigar, 
and blurs his last view of Mrs, Moberley’s 
window, at w’hich he is mistakenly gazing. 

By the time she is dressed and down- 
stairs the day has made up its mind to be 
regularly wet; no shilly-shallying half- 
measures ! The panes are already stream- 
ing ; the wind whistles instead of sighing ; 
the young flowers shiver and shrink, and 
the dogs, having been lured to the front- 
gate by the insulting noises made in pass- 
ing ; by a butcher’s boy, trot back with 
lowered tails, shaking their coats and 
sneezing. 

The house appears quite empty, though 
certainly neither “ swept ” nor “ garnish- 
ed.” Not a soul above nor below stairs 
shows signs of life. For the early part 
of the day she will probably be compan- 
ionless, as the Moberley family are re- 
pairing by sleep the ravages of yester- 
night’s dissipation. 

To be equally without occupation ; to 
have no other employment than to sit 
with idle hands, wondering to what sta- 
tion on his London route W oKerstan has 
yet attained, is out of the question. 

“I never used to wonder how far he 
was on his journey,” she says to herself 
with a sort of surprise, standing at the 
window looking out at the sickly cy- 
presses bowing in the gale, listening to 
the moaning of the rain-laden sea-wind. 
“When he was gone, he was gone — and 
there was an end of him I there mmt be 
an end of him now.” 

Eesolutely so saying, she turns away 
at once from the window, and, stepping 
lightly and softly past the Moberleys’ 
doors, mounts to the lumber-room at the 
top of the house, whither most of her big 


boxes have been relegated. From one of 
them she extracts an armful of books, 
and, carrying them down-stairs with her, 
buries herself in them. 

It is past mid-day before the Misses 
Moberley and their parent, yawning, pale, 
dkmuxrees^ with sketchy toilet details, 
and heavy eyelids, make their appearance. 
Evidently incapable of any other occupa- 
tion than reminiscence they throw them- 
selves into the three soundest and easiest 
chairs that the flimsily-furnished room 
affords. 

“It was heavenly says Bell, with a 
prodigious emphasis, in answer to an in- 
quiry from her cousin as to how they 
had enjoyed themselves. “ How I wish 
it could all come over again! All of 
them were there, and nearly half another 
regiment from Kiugsford besides. I am 
sure that I might have danced every 
dance three times over ; so might Di ! ” 

“That was only because there were 
so few girls,” says Diana, bluntly ; “ they 
had had a great many disappointments; 
that was why they sent off post haste for 
us at the last moment.” 

“ I cahnot think, Di,” cries Mrs. Mo- 
berley, fretfully, “ why you always seem 
to have such a pleasure in taking the gilt 
off our ginger-bread. — Do you know. 
Bell ” — with a sudden change in the cur- 
rent of her ideas — “do you know. Bell, it 
strikes me that they must have had the 
whole supper, just as it stood, from Tuck- 
er in the High Street — only the soups to 
be heated up, you know. A pretty pen- 
ny it must have cost them ; I never saw 
anything better done in my life — no stint 
anywhere, and the champagne-corks fly- 
ing the whole of the night.” 

“ I dare say,” answers Bell, indiffer- 
ently; “of course, the supper is every- 
thing to you, but I do not care about it 
myself; I am always far too excited to 
eat.” After a moment — “ You really must 
come next time, Joan! You need not be 
afraid of any lack of partners ; it will be 
pick and choose with you, and, indeed, 
they are all on the alert to see you al- 


62 


JOAN. 


ready. We have given such a glowing 
description of you — you may trust us for 
that I ” 

“ Indeed, Joan, there is no reason wliy 
you should mew yourself up,” says Mrs. 
Moherley, joining in assentingly, “ a fine, 
showy girl like you! Better make hay 
while the sun shines ” — laughing — “ in a 
white gown with a black sash, and black 
shoes and black ornaments; if you do 
not happen to have any, Di has got a pair 
of gutta-percha bracelets that she could 
lend you. No one would think of ex- 
pecting more of you than that, partic- 
ularly” — dropping her voice to a very 
low key — “ particularly under the circum- 
stances I ” 

Joan makes no reply beyond a very 
small shake of the head, and a still smaller 
smile. When the battle has to be fought 
really, she has no doubt of having strength 
enough and to spare for it, but now it 
would be waste of fibre — there being no 
warlike dissipation, and therefore no 
need for evading it this afternoon. 

“And you? ” says Bell, stretching out 
both arms, and laying her limp head back 
on the chair-cushion; “how* did you 
manage to get through the evening — you 
slept, I dare say? No more adventures 
on the beach, I suppose ? ” 

“ I did not go there.” 

“ Then you saw nothing more of An- 
thony W olf erstan, I suppose ? Anthony I 
— dear me, what a lovely name it is! 
How I wish that I knew him well enough 
to call him Anthony! ” 

To Joan’s wonder and immeasura- 
ble disgust and sorrow, she feels herself 
blushing; feels the slow red burning 
grow and strengthen in her chebks. For 
once in her life she would give one or 
both her ears to be able to tell a lie ; but 
now, as ever, it is impossible to her. 

“I walked in the other direction,” 
she answers, with a collected, if crimson, 
gravity, “ to a wood — I do not know its 
name — but he happened to overtake 
me.” 

'‘'’Happened!'''' echoes Mrs. Moherley, 


in a raised key, and with a roguishly ral- 
lying smile, while Diana stops in mid- 
yawn, and Bell lifts her languid, lolling 
head with suddenly revived animation; 
“ we all know what kind of.‘ happened ’ 
that is — do not we, girls ? So, after all, 
Miss Joan, it seems that you are as much 
up to a little bit of mischief as the 
others ! ” 

Unused to this kind of banter, hating 
it past the power of any words to ex- 
press, feeling the tears rising in her 
throat, and trying to swallow them back, 
Joan sits in red misery, as complete a 
picture of discomfiture in a small way as 
the world can afford. Taking, perhaps, 
her dumbness for the silence of enjoy- 
ment, or else too much preoccupied with 
her own merriment to give a thought to 
the subject of Joan’s feelings, Mrs. Mo- 
berley is already preparing for more 
badinage, when Di gallantly rushes to 
the rescue. 

“What a pile of books you have 
there, Joan ! ” she cries, with abrupt com- 
passion changing the subject, taking up a 
volurne and looking at its title-page; “no 
wonder that the carrier complained of the 
weight of your boxes.” 

“ ‘ When land is gone, and money spent. 

Then learning is most excellent 1 ’ ” 

answers Joan, recovering her counte- 
nance and her self-command, and looking^ 
gratefully back at her cousin; “as — ” 
(smiling a little sadly) “ as my whole for- 
tune lies in my brains, I like to know 
how large it is ; if, as is most probable, I 
shall have to be a governess, it is as well 
to know what I can teach ! ” 

“ Governess! ” echoes Mrs. Moherley, 
with a brusque heartiness ; “ fiddlesticks’ 
ends, and fried eggs ! You have no more 
need to be governess than Bell or Di 
has ; the only difference is, that now 1 
have three daughters instead of two. 
three little pigs to drive to market” — 
(with a comfortable chuckle). “If your 
own flesh and blood (and w^hat can be 
w^ell nearer than an aunt?) cannot board 


JOAN. 


63 


and lodge you at a pincli, things are come 
to a pretty pass.” 

“I would not be a governess,” cries 
Bell, throwing up her eyes to the well- 
smoked ceiling, and shrugging her shoul- 
ders, “no — not for anything you could 
give me ! If we were reduced in circum- 
stances, that is the very last thing that I 
should ever think of turning my hand 
to.” 

“ How servants do despise govern- 
esses 1 ” pursues Mrs. Moberley, sliding 
into placid reminiscence. “ I remember 
what trouble we used to have with ours 
when we were girls ; the button-boy never 
would answer her bell when she rang; 
and the cook always forgot to send up 
her supper. I declare, Bell ” — (with a 
sudden change of tone from calm recol- 
lection of the past to warm excitement in 
the present) — “I declare, Bell, if those 
pigs are not in the garden again — there 
never was anything like the cleverness of 
a pig about opening gates.” 

So saying, as quickly as the peculi- 
arities of her form will allow, and fol- 
lowed by her eldest daughter, she hurries 
out of the room. 

Diana and Joan remain behind, in si- 
lence at first ; then Di speaks : 

“Were you joking, or are you going 
to be a governess, really ? ” 

“ Really.” 

“You will not like it.” 

“ No, I know that I shall not,” replies 
Joan, her eyes absently fixed on the figure 
of her aunt, as seen through the window, 
in water-proof and clogs, with arms ex- 
tended like a windmill, splashing through 
the puddles in pursuit of the alien swine. 
“ But you think ” — (with a short, uneasy 
laugh and painful blush) — “that that — 
that anything, in fact — would be better 
than — than — 

Joan looks uncomfortable. 

“ I think,” she says, gently, “ that no 
young, able-bodied person, who can earn 
his own bread, has any business to be 
eating other people’s all his days.” 

“ Taine’s ‘ Nouveaux Essais de Critique 


et d’Histoire,’ ” says Diana, slowly spell- 
ing out one of the titles. “You are not 
reading them for pleasure, then ? ” (in a 
relieved voice). “I thought you could 
not be.” 

Joan laughs. 

“ They expect so much from govern- 
esses nowadays ! ” resumes Diana, pres- 
ently. “Do you mean to say” — (in a 
rather awed tone) — “that you think you 
are up to the mark ? ” 

“ That is what I want to find out.” 

“We are grossly ignorant,” resumes 
the other, candidly ; “ grossly. The other 
day — in the winter, Bobby — Bell’s Bobby, 
you know — offered to lend us a French 
novel. We took it, because we did not 
like to own that we could not read it; 
but we could not” — (shaking her head) 
— “ we could not make head or tail of it.” 

“Shall I teach you?” cries Joan, 
eagerly. “ Will you be my first pupil ? — 
the first victim of my inexpertness ? Do 
— I am quite serious ; it would be a boon 
to me, and — ” 

“ Go back into the school-room again ! ” 
cries Diana, opening her eyes widely in 
surprise at this proposition ; “ why. Bell 
and I were finished two years ago ; I was 
nineteen last February ; many people are 
married at nineteen : several of our 
schoolfellows were— one had a baby.” 

“ But you are not married ! ” replies 
Joan, again laughing; “and until that 
blessed epoch arrives — ” 

“ It never will,” replies Diana, solemn- 
ly and sorrowfully, shaking her head ; 
“ who would marry us ? ” she says, with 
a sincere self-scorn. “ Do we look like 
the sort of girls that men marry ^ — it 
never struck me in that light till you 
came, but now I see that we are fit to bo 
nothing but camp-followers ! — I believe 
that I must have been born in a baggage- 
wagon ! ” 

“Must you?” with a rather embar- 
rassed smile. 

• “Even if I shaved my fringe,” con- 
tinues Diana, gravely, pulling it out over 
her eyes, and squinting awfully in the 


64 


JOAN. 


endeavor to see it ; “ even if I daily 
dipped my head into a bucket of cold 
water to flatten it, it would never look 
like yours — would it, now ? Speak truth 
— gospel truth.” 

But Joan is happily saved from the 
necessity of replying to this difficult and 
delicate query. 

“ They were the Sardanapalus pigs ! ” 
cries Mrs. Moberley in a raised key, re- 
entering the room, flushed with victory, 
and casting off her water-proof like a tight 
husk; “luckily it is easy to know them 
— they are the only Berkshire ones in 
the row.” 


CHAPTEK XIII. 

A MONTH has crawled away since 
Joan rang her first timid peal at the hell 
at Portland Yilla. Months have as many 
different paces as any other time-meas- 
ures. Some gallop wildly; some trot 
smartly; some creep on all-fours. This 
one has been among the slowest-paced. 
Now it is gone; and — insipidly unpleas- 
ant as it has been — there is no reason for 
rejoicing at its being over ; for, as far as 
human eye can see — as far as human 
reason can judge — the brothers, that, in- 
definitely numerous, tread upon its heels, 
are not at all likely to be more agree- 
able; except inasmuch as use hardens 
people to the uncongenial and the un- 
lovely. And the power of use, in this 
respect, has, Joan is beginning to think, 
been overrated. Use — twenty-eight, nay 
thirty days’ use — ^has failed at all to re- 
duce her shrinking from rumpled, stain- 
freaked table-cloths : at all to decrease 
her desire furtively to wipe her dull tea- 
spoon before putting it between her lips ; 
in the least degree to lessen the wonder 
of the problem how Mrs. Moberley came 
to be her aunt ; or in any measure to in- 
crease her fondness for amative-military 
jokes; jokes, not ty the soldiers — let us 
do them that justice — but about them. 


It is mid-May now, but mid-May not 
as poets sing it, but with its lovely face 
puckered and pinched by the spiteful nip- 
ping of the east winds. They have been 
nipping, pinching, withering, for a full 
week past, and they are nipping, pinch- 
ing, withering still. Joan, standing by 
the propped-open window of her little 
room, and leaning her head against the 
paintless frame, is looking musingly out, 
and running over in her mind the little 
bald incidents of the last four weeks. 
Thrice the butcher has forgotten, or at 
least omitted, to bring the meat. Twice 
Sarah has let fall the tray and smashed 
four of the soundest cups and saucers, 
and six of the healthiest plates. Three 
times the ingenious pigs have lifted the 
latch and reentered the garden. Five 
times there have been warlike gayeties 
to be staved off ; each time successfully, 
but also each time after a harder battle 
and giving more offense. Twenty — nay, 
it is impossible to count how many times 
Micky Brand has been here, and Wol- 
ferstan has been here not at all! At 
thought of the first of these two names, 
she, being alone, makes a gesture of im- 
patience and distaste ; at thought of the 
last, she turns away from the window, 
and taking up a little almanac from the 
table examines, it. Twenty-eight days — 
exactly four weeks — since they shook 
hands by that gate, between the waning 
sun and waxing moon, and he humbly 
asked permission to come soon again. 

She laughs a little derisively. Thank 
God she did not give it — did not give that 
unnecessary leave ! To grant a favor of 
wh job the recipient does not think it worth 
his while to avail himself, is one of the 
most considerable among the minor hu- 
miliations to which flesh is liable. When 
one is severed from any state of existence 
it is useless to try and hang on to it by a 
single thread. And yet, probably, she 
herself would hardly have had the cour- 
age to cut the thread; Wolferstan has 
kindly done it for her. 

“As I am now henceforth and forever 


JOAN. 


65 


one of the lourgeoisie — one of the minor 
lourgeoisie^^"' she says, relentlessly put- 
ting her fate into words, “ it certainly is 
as well that I should receive as few as 
possible of a fine gentleman’s idle atten- 
tions; particularly” (smiling bitterly) “as 
he took such pains to explain to me that 
they were only idle.” 

So saying, she takes up a hook and 
buries herself in it until the hour devoted 
to Diana’s instruction shall strike. For 
Diana has proved herself superior to the 
force of public opinion — the public opin- 
ion of her own circle and family — and, 
triumphing over, not only her own sense 
of the unseemliness of voluntarily re- 
suming those leading-strings which two 
years ago she so joyfully cast away, but 
over Bell’s persistent persiflage, and 
proving herself invulnerable even by the 
darts of Micky’s wit, now daily sits at 
the feet of her new Gamaliel, and looks 
forward hopefully to the time when the 
next French novel shall be offered for her 
acceptance, and she will be able proudly 
to take it, and ostentatiously to enjoy its 
now occult beauties. 

To Joan the two hours devoted to this 
task are the most bearable in the day. 
Each exercise of patience, called forth by 
Diana’s dullness ; each small, slow victo- 
ry over ignorance and misapprehension, 
se|pis to her a step toward the desired 
goal of independence and self-mainte- 
nance. 

If she can teach Diana she can teach 
others, though seldom, probably, wiU she 
meet with a pupil who, to so deep a con- 
sciousness of her own shortcomings, unites 
so honest a determination to be ultimately 
very learned. The course of study has 
this morning been in full swing for about 
half an hour, when Joan perceives, by the 
wandering of Diana’s eyes, the wavering 
of her color, and the additional stumbling 
with which she begins to jog through 
Eacine’s classic page, that some outside 
object is distracting her attention. 

“What is it?” she cries, a little im- 
patiently ; “ how you are murdering it ! ” 


“ It is Micky,” replies Diana, rosily. 

“ Is that all ? ” says Joan, carelessly ; 
“ I thought that at least it must be the 
rag-and-bone man I Well — 

“ ‘ Que vois-je ? est-ce Ilermione ? et que viens 
je d’ entendre 1 

Pour qui coule le sang que je viens de r6pan- 
dre ? ’ ” 

Diana complies : 

“ ‘ Que vois-je ? est-ce Hermione ? et que viens 
je d’ entendre ? 

Pour qui coule le sang que je viens de rdpan- 
dre ? ’ ” 

But, having rendered Orestes’s horror- 
•struck question with as little surprise and 
as much tameness as it is well possible, 
she again stops. You do not think that 
we need go down, then ? ” 

“ Certainly not! ” replies Joan, short- 
ly; “how many people does he need to 
entertain him ? he has two already — your 
mother and Bell.” 

“ That is true,” says Diana, with an 
air of reluctant conviction, again limping- 
ly resuming the heroic frenzy of the son 
of Agamemnon : 

“ ‘ Je suis, si je I’en crois, un traiti’e, un assas- 
sin ! 

Est-ce Pyrrhus qui meurt? et suis-je Oreste 
enfin 1 ’ ” 

The house-door has been opened. 
Micky’s weighty foot has been heard 
along the passage ; a louder buzz of talk 
below tells of the fillip he is giving to the 
conversation. 

“ You do not think that he will take 
it unkind ? ” suggests Diana, again break- 
ing ofif. 

“ It is not of the least consequence if 
he does.” 

“ No, of course not” (with a sigh). 

“ ‘ Quoi 1 j’^touffe en mon coeur la raison qui 
m’eclaire ; 

J’assassme k regret un roi que je revere ; 

Je viole en un jour le droit des souveraius, 
Ceux des ambassadeurs.’ ” 

“ You are to come down-stairs at once, 
both of you,” cries Bell, who, during the 


66 


JOAN. 


previous lines, having been heard noisily 
scampering up the carpetless stairs, now 
hursts into the room, and, both chairs be- 
ing occupied, falls out of breath on the bed. 

“Who says so?” asks Joan, quickly, 
growing angrily pink. 

“Mother,” replies Bell, panting and 
affectedly holding her hand to her heart ; 
“she has been telling Micky about your 
singing, Joan, and how your ‘Barbara 
Allen ’ made her cry last night. He says ” 
(laughing) “ that he wants to see whether 
you can make him cry too ! ” 

For the twentieth time Joan regrets 
the visit of a passing tuner, who by exer- 
cising his skill on the cracked old spinet, 
and restoring their voices to its half a 
dozen dumb notes, has taken away her 
best excuse for not trotting forth her ac- 
complishment for the benefit of Mrs. Mo- 
berley’s warlike friends. 

Diana has already jumped up, and, 
letting Orestes and his frenzy roll on the 
floor, is standing before the glass, smooth- 
ing and beautifying her wild hair with 
one of Joan’s brushes. 

The drawing-room door, when opened, 
discloses Micky stretched at easy length 
upon the sofa, not offering to help Mrs. 
Moberley, who is already opening the 
dusty piano, and trying to infuse a little 
,4 steadiness into the uncertain music-stool. 
He is indeed occupied in trying to teach 
. ^r. Brown the well-known accomplish- 
ment of “ Trust and paid for ; ” whereof 
Mr. Brown fully understands and ap- 
preciates the last half, but can see neither 
humor nor point in the first. Joan’s en- 
trance frees him from the strain of educa- 
tion, for in a moment his teacher is off 
the sofa, and advancing with some de- 
monstrativeness to meet her. He is in- 
deed so much occupied by his salutation 
to his new friend as to omit taking any 
notice of his old one, which he afterward 
gracefully explains and apologizes for by 
saying that he had quite forgotten that 
he had not seen her before. 

“You did not know that I was here, 
I suppose,” he says, confidently glancing 


from one girl to the other; “ did not ex- 
pect me so early ? ” 

Diana looks foolish ; but Joan an- 
swers coldly and serenely : 

“ We saw you coming up the drive.” 

“ They were at lessons,” cries Bell, 
giggling ; “ two good little girls with their 
primers and copy-books.” 

“ Have you got to pothooks and hang- 
ers yet ? ” asks Micky, jocosely ; but his 
wit is thrown away upon the object at 
which it is wholly aimed, as she has joined 
her aunt at the piano, and is listening to 
her cautions with regard to the music- 
stool. 

“If you do not lean your whole 
weight upon it, and if you do not screw 
it up too high, I think it will hold,” she 
says, gravely testing it with one hand. 
In obedience to this advice Joan sits gin- 
gerly down, and forthwith strikes up the 
dear old ditty : 

“ In Scarlet town, where I was born, 

There was a fair maid dwelling. 

Made ev’ry youth cry well-araway ; 

Her name was Barbara Allen. 

“ All in the merry month of May, 

When green buds they were swelling, 

Young Jemmy Grove on his death-bed lay, 
For love of Barbara Allen. 

“ Then slowly, slowly she came up, 

And slowly she came nigh him, 

And all she said when there she came, 

‘ Young man, I think you’re dying.’ ” 

Mr. Brand has stationed himself close 
behind the performer, with his thumb 
and forefinger on the score, in the full in- 
tention of whipping the leaf smartly over 
as soon as her voice arriving at ing shall 
warn him that it is time. In this well- 
meant but ill-executed endeavor he only 
succeeds in felling the music -book to 
earth. As they both stoop to pick it up, 
he says to her in a loud, clumsy whisper 
from among the legs of the piano : 

“ ‘ Young man, I think you’re dying ; ’ 

that is just what I can fancy you saying.” 

For all answer, she hastily resumes 
her lay : 


JOAN. 


67 


“ When he was dead and laid in grave, 

Her heart was struck with sorrow.” 

“ That is the hall-door bell ! ” cries 
Diana, interrupting, and pricking up her 
ears — “surely! ” 

“ Only the area ! ” answers Bell, 
shaking her head ; “ they are so like — 
three times this morning it has taken me 
in ! ” 

“ 0 mother, mother, pity me I 
For I shall die to-morrow.” 

Mrs. Moberley has taken out her 
pocket-handkerchief, being sure that she 
will soon feel inclined to cry. Kegy 
has half lifted his nose; not quite sure 
whether the suffering inflicted on him by 
Miss Dering’s melody is acute enough to 
justify a howl; and Micky has replaced 
his no-longer-needed thumb and fore- 
finger in his pocket. 

But Barbara Allen is fated not to die 
to-day. Her death-agonies are inter- 
rupted by the appearance of Sarah, who 
now noisily enters ; her face capriciously 
freaked with smuts ; and in her hand a 
bouquet of choice hot - house flowers, 
which, with a forethought and self-con- 
sciousness of dirt not to be too much com- 
mended, she is shielding from contact 
with her dusky fingers, by the interpo- 
sition of a portion of the tail of her 
hardly less dusky gown — flowers such 
as used to be Joan’s daily bread; flowers 
such as she never sees now save in envi- 
ous dreams. In a moment she is off the 
music-stool. In a moment they are all 
up and out of their chairs, and crowding 
round Sarah. 

“ Where are they from ? ” 

“ For whom are they ? ” 

“ Who brought them ? ” 

“ As sure as fate it is Jackson ! ” cries 
Bell, with a rapturous simper ; “the idea 
of his daring! — and I told him as plainly 
as I could speak that he was not to do 
anything of the kind — the youngest sub- 
altern in the regiment ! ” 

Di’s big blue eyes are fixed rather 
wistfully with a faint hope upon Micky’s | 


face ; but, alas ! there is no conscious- 
ness on that large and bovine expanse. 

“ If you please, ’m,” says Sarah, as 
soon as they will allow her to speak — 
conscientiously holding the nosegay at 
arms’-length — in order to be able to resist 
the almost irresistible temptation to sniff 
its perfume — “ if you please, ’m, I was to 
say that they are for Miss Joan, from the 
^abbey ! ” 

“From the Abbey! ” cries Bell, in a 
disgusted tone, falling back into her 
chair, and turning as many colors as a 
dead mackerel ; “then it is not Jackson, 
after all ! ” 

“Is the colonel down? did he bring 
them himself? when did he come? ” cries 
Mrs. Moberley, volleying question after 
question ; while the fatness of her cheeks 
is unable wholly to veil the triumphant 
fire of her eyes. 

“It was not the colonel, ’m; it was 
one of the grooms ! ” answers Sarah, de- 
livering up the flowers into their owner’s 
most ready hands, and retreating to the 
door. 

“ Did you give him a glass of beer ? 
I hope you gave him a glass of beer ! ” 
cries Mrs. Moberley, at the top of her 
voice ; pursuing her now-departed hand- 
maid with a hospitable scream. 

“ I hope not, for his sake, poor devil ! ” 
says Micky, with a noisy laugh; “you 
must excuse my laughing, but you people 
really have the worst small-beer in Eu- 
rope! where on earth do you get it 
from ? ” 

Absorbed as Joan is in the joy of her 
posy, she cannot resist lifting her eyes to 
give him one glance of silent indignation ;‘ 
but Mrs. Moberley begins a weak and 
long-winded explanation of how it used to 
come from the Blue Posts ; and though it 
is mostly sour now, yet that the old man 
is as honest an old man as you would see 
in a summer day, etc., etc. 

Joan has turned away to the window 
to gloat over her treasures, ashamed that 
any one should see the joy painted on all 
her face. 


68 


JOAN. 


“If it came from Oovent Garden,” 
says Di, joining her, “it could not have 
cost him a penny less than a guinea! 
Bobby Butler’s that he gave Bell for the 
Fryars’ New-Year’s Ball came to fifteen 
shillings ! he told me so himself ; and it 
was not half so big or so choice as this.” 

“A guinea! fifteen shillings?” cries 
Micky, contemptuously; “you may de- 
pend upon it, it did not cost him a pen- 
ny! of course it came out of their own 
houses; the only wonder is, that he did 
not think of so obvious an attention be- 
fore.” 

“ I wonder,” says Bell, advancing 
with inquisitive haste to join her sister 
and cousin — “ I wonder if there is not a 
note among them ? in novels there always 
is a 'billet-doux under the leaves — do look, 
Joan — nay” (giggling, as Joan turns 
away with reddened cheeks and an an- 
gry “Pooh!”), “now I am sure that 
there is, and that she is trying to find it 
without our seeing! ” 

“ Examine it for yourself, then ! ” cries 
Joan, tragically, holding out her nosegay, 
yielding it to Bell’s ravaging, desecrating 
hands; and looking on with an inward 
writhing as her cousin lifts each airy 
petal, parts each slender stem to peep, 
and dig, and ferret between. In vain. 

“ I never can see the object of cram- 
ming bouquets full of this stuff! ” says 
Micky, in a hold-cheap voice ; spitefully 
touching with his solid forefinger a fra- 
gile spray of maidenhair ; “it dies before 
you can say ‘ knife,’ and shrivels up to an 
unsightly little black wisp.” 

“ I suppose that we have seen the last 
of them now,” says Bell, with envious 
tone, reluctantly restoring her scented 
load. — “I suppose, Joan, that you will 
take them up to your room now, and 
keep them there ! ” 

“Put them into your jug,” says Di, 
kindly ; “I should — and cut their stalks 
every day ; your room will smell like a 
greenhouse ! ” 

“ Why should I be so greedy? ” says 
Joan, with reluctant magnanimity ; “ why 


should not we all have the benefit of them ? 
— that is ” (retreating a little, and holding 
up her hand as a shield against Micky, 
who is advancing his blunt nose, with the 
evident intention of burying it among the 
orchids and gardenias), “that is — all we 
inmates of the house.” 

“I wish,” says Bell, recovering her 
complexion and her interest in the sub- 
ject — “I wish that some one would in- 
duce Sarah to be dressed a little earlier 
than usual to-day; he is pretty sure to 
look in, in the course of the afternoon, to 
be thanked! ” 

“ If you -want her to be spoken to, 
my dear,” replies Mrs. Moberley, in a 
whining tone, with her eyes aimlessly 
fixed on the blind, which is pulled up 
awry, and on which ancient rain-stains 
make a yellow zigzag, “ you must do it 
yourself, for I tell you plainly I dare not! 
it is as much as my place is worth, as they 
say; she would make no more of giving 
me warning than I should of blowing my 
nose! I am sure I do not know what 
the girls are coming to ! As Mrs. Green 
said the other day, there are no girls any- 
where ! ” 


CHAPTER XIV. 

The next day is Sunday — a day to 
which Joan has been looking forward 
with some dread, as it is to witness her 
debut at the Helmsley garrison church, 
which her cousins weekly frequent with 
pious regularity, winter and summer, 
come rain, come shine. For the first 
four Sundays of her stay with them she 
has succeeded in avoiding this ordeal ; 
firstly, by a headache ; secondly, by an 
ostentatiously-displayed cold ; thirdly, by 
a wet day, and the plea of easily-spoiled 
crape ; and, fourthly, by feigned over-fa- 
tigue from a long walk on the previous 
day. But this morning all these pretexts ' 
fail her. She has plainly no cold, nor 
would it be possible for any one with 
such clearly bright eyes and such deli- 


JO AIT. 


69 


catelj healthy cheeks to lay claim to a 
headache. It is not raining, and she 
took no walk yesterday ; to worship God 
with the soldiers must she therefore una- 
voidably go. Three miles there and three 
miles back, and for all that distance no 
more shade than you could cover with a 
penny-piece. A hot May sun brazenly 
staring, and a graceless wind catching up 
the dust in its spiteful hands and thrust- 
ing it down your reluctant throat and 
into your winking eyes. A day like a 
handsome shrew, goodly to look at, fresh 
and finely tinted, hateful to feel. 

Mrs. Moberley, whose fondness for 
the military is hardly inferior to that of 
her daughters,^ has set off half an hour 
earlier to “ take her time,” as she says. 
By-and-by they overtake her, “ larding,” 
like Falstaff, “ the lean earth,” the wind 
faithfully outlining her bounteous form 
as she struggles against it, and her shawl 
forming a playful balloon at her back — 
“ faint yet pursuing.” 

As they pass a quiet little church with 
bells invitingly ringing, Joan makes a 
despairing stand, weary of the unend- 
ing struggle with her heavy crape tail, 
which will decline from her arm into the 
dust, most weary of the sun, the blast, 
the audacious fat flies. 

“ Why should not we go in here ? ” 
she asks, looking longingly at the gray 
walls and the arched door. 

“ Nobody does,” replies Bell, trench- 
antly quickening her pace ; “ none of 
them do. Sometimes they go to St. 
Chad’s in the afternoon because the mu- 
sic is good, but never here” — (nodding 
contemptuously at the despised place of 
worship). — “ One sees nothing but a few 
fusty tradespeople.” 

They have reached the haven at length, 
and are deposited in a pew, three in a 
row; Joan, more in accordance with 
their wishes than her own, between her 
two cousins, a pew with a first-rate pros- 
pect. From it one can see soldiers in 
profile, soldiers in rear, soldiers in three- 
quarter. The Misses Moberley, having 


hurried through their preliminary prayer 
and smoothed their refractory locks and 
feathers, are now prepared for devotion 
and enjoyment; nor are they selfishly 
anxious to keep either their pleasure or 
their information to themselves. In what- 
ever ignorance of the domestic details of 
the 170th Joan has entered the church, 
they are determined that she shall leave 
it in no such case. 

From the moment of their establish- 
ment in the pew she is subject to an al- 
ternate nudging and loud whispering into 
her reluctant ears. ‘‘Do you see that 
woman coming up the chancel in the 
prune silk ? That is Mrs. Simpson ; her 
husband is adjutant. She gave a garden- 
party the other day, and asked everybody 
but us. It poured with rain ; we were 
so glad.” From the other side: “That 
is Mrs. Allen in the fifth pew on the left 
in the side aisle ; she never returned our 
call. She gives herself great airs because 
the general once sent his carriage for 
her.” This last piece of information is 
conveyed in so raised a key that Joan 
looks apprehensively round and cries, 
“Sh!” 

' The entrance of clergy and choir 
causes a slight lull in the conversation. 
Everybody stands up: in this position 
many new discoveries, as to who is in 
church and who is not, are made. The 
organ plays, the exhortation is read. 
By-and-by they reach the Litany. With 
face down sunk on her slender black-clad 
hands, Joan is joining with more heart- 
felt earnestness than ever in her life be- 
fore in the congregational cry of “ Good 
Lord deliver us ! ” She has a vague feel- 
ing that it is from Portland Villa, from 
Bell, from squalor, from little sordid 
trials and mean afflictions that she is beg- 
ging to be delivered. As she so pitifully 
and yearningly prays, she lifts her face, 
and her sad look wanders idly round the 
strange, unfriendly church, and over the 
many strange, unfriendly faces — they are 
so many, and not one friend among them 
all. Her eyes move indifferently, inat- 


70 


JO Als". 


tentivelj, from one to the other in lack- 
lustre survey, when, suddenly they stop, 
and a little flash of clear, bright joy darts 
into their dolorous blue depths. 

Is not that a friend who, so far away, 
so almost out of sight, so nearly hidden 
by the intervening red bodies of Micky, 
Jackson, and half a dozen other light- 
infantry, is leaning his sunshiny head 
against a stone pillar in abstract medita- 
tion or in sleep ? One can see nothing 
of him but his back— a good, vigorous 
flat back — and the satiny sweep of his 
straight, brown locks. Has he come to 
Helmsley church to be thanked for his 
nosegay ? for it is Wolferstan I Ho sooner 
has she recognized him than she stoops 
her head again, and hides the cheeks that 
she feels have grown suddenly warmly 
pink, on her open prayer-book, while 
above the drone of the clergyman and 
the monotonous chorister voices she hears 
the beating of her own loud heart. 

“I am too glad! ” she says to herself, 
shrinking frightened from the unused sen- 
sation of joy — “much too glad. "Why 
should I be? there is no reason — none ! ” 

Anon she steals another look. He 
has turned his profile toward her and his 
roving eye is wandering over the bent 
heads of the kneeling worshipers in evi- 
dent search. There is no doubt that it is 
he : that broad gray eye, bold and mirth- 
ful, the clear window to such a goodly 
prosperous house, the de couj^e nostril, the 
debonnaiv lips, the shorn square chin. 

“ There is no doubt that I am dreadful- 
ly glad,” she says to herself, remorsefully, 
“and why in Heaven’s name should I be ? ” 

So she resolutely and ruthlessly keeps 
her eyes hidden and averted from that 
pleasant sight, nor takes one other glance. 
That is, not till the very end ; not till — at 
the welcome signal of the benediction — 
all, both wakeful and sleepful, have sprung 
alertly to their feet. Then she lets her 
looks stray hastily once again to the dis- 
tant pillar. Has he seen her ? Probably 
not. His part of the chm’qh is drained by 
a distant door. He will probably depart 


without ever having been aware of her 
neighborhood. 

“ So much the better,” she says, in- 
wardly ; but, even while so thinking, her 
fingers fidget uneasily with her prayer- 
book. Tall as she is, she raises herself 
furtively *a little on her toes — her one 
chance of being discovered lies in her 
height and her black weeds. 

“You need not be in a hurry, Joan,” 
says Bell, in a final whisper, noting her 
cousin’s restlessness. “We always let 
them go out first — they pass by this pew 
— here they come, how their swords clat- 
ter ! ” 

At length — at length — in the wake of 
many red tunics, they leave the church 
and reach the porch, only to find it filled 
with a discomfited crowd. For the face 
of the day is changed; the brazen sun, 
the sickly glare, are gone — effaced by one 
giant rain-cloud which has swept over the 
sky and is angrily hurling its watery load 
to earth ; the wind, lowered, but not yet 
sunk, and still spiteful as ever, is driving 
the heavy drops into the faces and against 
the Sunday clothes of the shrinking towns- 
folk in the porch. 

Those who, prophetically wise, have 
brought mackintoshes or water-proofs with 
them, are complacently enduing them. 
Those who have not, are enviously eying 
them. Among the latter class is the Mo- 
berley family. Ho protection whatever 
against the weather have they, but flimsi- 
est, gaudiest parasols ; and on poor Diana’s 
head flourishes the beloved plume of para- 
dise, which, every Sunday, moves from 
her hat to her bonnet, and every Monday 
moves back again from her bonnet to her 
hat. 

“It is good weather for young ducks, 
and that is all that one can say I ” says Mrs. 
Moberley, with her usual slipshod, happy- 
go-lucky philosophy, gazing at the mad 
little muddy river which is racing down 
the church-path. 

Joan’s eyes are directed— not toward 
the hostile weather — but toward the people 
still issuing from the church. Alas ! they 


J 0 AN. 


71 


have all come forth now ; even the gal- 
leries and organ-loft are emptied and he is 
not among them. Her prognostic is ful- 
filled — he has departed without ever sus- 
pecting her nearness. As she so thinks, 
with a private low sigh, her attention and 
her eyes are both recalled by a hasty, 
breathless voice at her ear. It is Micky, 
who, with rain-drops racing down his 
nose, with deeper red stains on his wet 
red tunic, panting, yet triumphant, stands 
before her with a large umbrella in his 
hand. 

“ Miss Dering — you have no umbrella ! 
— I saw that you had not — I have been to 
fetch one for you — sexton’s house— sex- 
ton’s wife — hold it over you — no chance^ 
of its clearing — set off at once ! ” 

“My aunt has no umbrella either,” 
answers Joan, coldly, shrinking back far- 
ther into the shelter of the porch. 

“What does he care for that?” says 
Mrs. Moberley, with a good-humored 
chuckle. — Never mind, my dear. I am 
not sugar or salt either.” 

“But Bell — Di — the alpacas!” cries 
Joan, looking round -with hasty wistful- 
ness, and greedily snatching at the near- 
est excuse. 

“ I am sorry that I cannot divide my- 
self and my umbrella by three I ” says 
Micky, jocosely, having recovered his 
breath and his coherence, “but, as 1 can- 
not, I must repeat my offer.” 

“ Never mind us I ” says Diana, stoical- 
ly, winking away a very small tear, which 
had been called into being by the callous 
indifference to her fate displayed by her 
old friend. “ He is quite right — you are 
of much more consequence.” 

“ Get along with you! ” says Mrs. Mo- 
berley, heartily, giving her a little friendly 
push, never doubting that a compunctious 
delicacy is the only motive for her niece’s 
hanging back, “ we must take our chance, 
and as to the alpacas — why, your crape 
would buy them over and over again! ” 

Thus urged and encouraged by her 
relatives, what remains for Joan to do but 
to step out into the large, resolute rain 


under the aegis of the sexton’s wife’s 
roomy umbrella? She does it as loathly 
as a cat would. Up the swimming church- 
path, through the church-gate, out into 
the swimming road. At least the choking 
dust which rose to one’s eyes is changed 
to mud, which can assault one no higher 
than one’s ankles. 

In wrathful — if ungratefully irration- 
ally wrathful — silence, Joan stalks along, 
and, though his legs are longer than hers, 
he has some ado to keep up with her 
without degenerating into a run. At 
last; 

“Do not you think,” says Micky, in 
mild remonstrance — (for, in a Ute-d,-tete^ 
the swagger which the knowledge of the 
invariable Moberley support and applause 
alone maintains wholly disappears) — “ do 
not you think that if you walk so very 
fast you will be out of breath before you 
reach Portland Yilla? ” 

“ Thank you, no.” 

“Do you call it quite three miles to 
Helmsley?” pursues Mr. Brand, trying 
to be conversationally agreeable on indif- 
ferent subjects. “ I should think that it 
could not be more than two and three- 
quarters.” 

“ Quite three — more than three ! ” 
replies Joan, with a despondent glance 
at the long stretch of wet, straight road 
before her. “I think” (diffidently) — 
“ that if you would allow me to come a 
little nearer to you I could protect you 
better; the points of the umbrella are 
dripping on to your shoulder.” 

“ Thank you ! ” (very hastily). “ It 
is of no consequence.” 

“You” (with a good deal of hesita- 
tion) — “ you would not like to take my 
arm, I suppose ? ” 

“ Thank you, no ! ” 

A silence. Still mightily striding 
through the storm. 

“ I wonder what has become of the 
others?” begins Micky again presently, 
with an air of complacency. “I hope 
they are not getting a drenching.” 

“ I do not see how they can well help 


JOAN. 


72 

it,” replies Joan, dryly ; “ and Diana liad 
a cold already.” 

“Poor girl I” (in a tone of ostenta- 
tious indifference) ; “ liow very unlucky ! ” 

Through the bleak suburbs between 
the scaffolding-poles and the forlorn brick- 
heaps they are passing, when another 
noise mixes with that of the rain and the 
wind in their ears. A noise of wheels 
coming up behind them — some happy 
person who has a carriage, and presum- 
ably has not a Micky, bowling safely and 
dryly home from church. As the wheels 
come up with them their noise ceases. 
The happy person is apparently stopping 
beside them. In quick wonder, just fla- 
vored with an unlikely hope, Joan looks 
round, in time to see Wolferstan throw- 
ing the reins to his groom, and jumping 
down out of his phaeton into the mud ; 
on his figure is a wet great-coat, and on 
his face a rather displeased expression of 
pleasure. 

“ Miss Dering, will you allow me to 
take you home ? at least, you will be able 
to keep yourself drier — may I help you 
in at once? that is, of course, unless” 
(with a slight and sulky glance at Micky) 
“ you prefer walking.” 

“Is it likely ? ” she answers, with a 
smile all sunshine — not mixed with sun- 
shine and rain like his; “am I quite a 
fish, to be so fond of the water ? ” and so 
gives him her hand ; and setting her light 
foot on the step springs gayly in, leaving 
Micky unthanked, alone, with his giant 
umbrella, in the mire. 

How one’s point of view changes ! 
Five minutes ago, Joan was ready to main- 
tain that there were nearer four than 
three miles between Helmsley and Port- 
land Yilla ; now she is prepared to swear 
that there are not more than two, and of 
those two, one, through her ill-advised 
hasty striding, is already overpast. 

“ You never walked with me under 
an umbrella!” is Wolferstan’s first re- 
proachful observation, as through the 
storm they merrily fly. 

“It was always fine weather when I 


was with you,” replies Joan; nor, until 
she has uttered it, does she see the double 
meaning of the answer. 

“Under an umbrella,” repeats Yfol- 
ferstan, frowning a little ; the idea evi- 
dently rankling in his mind ; “ there is 
such intimacy in an umbrella.” 

“ Yes, there is,” answers Joan, shud- 
dering a little at the recollection of Micky’s 
eyes amorously glowering at her from 
beneath the great cotton mushroom. 

“ What a pace you must have walked 
at ! ” continues the young man, still 
chafing ; “ whose fault was that — yours 
or his ? ” 

“ Mine.” 

“ You must have run.” 

I 

“ I did nearly.” 

“I should have overtaken you long 
ago,” says Anthony, with an air of irri- 
tation, “ only that I was fool enough to ‘ 
wait at the church — I forgot all about 
that other door.” 

“ You saw me in church, then ? ” 

“ Yes, but not till the sermon ” (in an 
aggrieved voice). 

“ Ah I I saw you in the Litany ” (with 
a soft tone of superiority). 

How quickly the horse is trotting ! At 
this rate in five minutes they will be at 
Portland gate. How smartly they, pass 
through the slackening rain, while the 
boisterous wind sings with uncouth jol- 
lity in their ears I 

“ What a long time it seems since I 
was here last ! ” says W olferstan, presently, 
looking affectionately at the wet May gar- 
lands in the hedges — at the roadside trees 
— at the flat green fields. 

“Exactly a month — four weeks yes- 
terday,” answers Joan. Then, seeing on 
his face more complacency at the accu- 
racy of her memory than she thinks either 
wholesome or desirable, she hastens to 
add: “I have a wonderful memory for 
small incidents ; it is a month since you 
were here ; three weeks since the piano- 
tuner ; ten days since the sweeps.” 

The complacency disappears, as she 
had meant it. The greatest coxcomb 


JOAN. 


73 


^cannot be too much exalted by being 
bracketed with a piano-tuner and sweeps. 

• “Four weeks, instead of the one that 
I meant,” he says, reflectively. “ Do you 
know why it has been four weeks instead 
of one ? ” 

“ Yes,” she answers, sedately, “ I 
know.” 

“Why?” 

“ Because you were .better amused 
where you were.” 

He shakes his head. 

“Wrong. Not but what I was very 
much amused too,” he adds, conscien- 
tiously ; “ for the matter of that, I mostly 
am. For my part” (with a light laugh), 
“ I should like to live forever ; the lon- 
ger my innings are the better I shall be 
pleased; but that was not the reason.” 

She is silent. 

“Why do not you ask me what it 
was?” he asks in a sort of pet — “when 
you see that I am longing to be ques- 
tioned? You might have the civility to 
oblige me.” 

“ Suppose that I do not care to hear ? ” 
she says, with a small, fine smile. 

“ Then you ought to care,” he answers, 
gayly. “ Whether you care or not you 
must hear. Are you listening ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“‘You know,” he goes on, becoming 
grave and speaking seriously, “ I am sure 
I told you that I have no great belief in 
myself. I have never had much reason 
for any; and you disbelieved in me so 
thoroughly, too, that I thought, perhaps, 
after all, you might be right.” 

“Yes.” 

“Do you know,” he continues, red- 
dening slightly and speaking quickly, “I 
wish you would not make me tell you 
these sort of humiliating things, but you 
do. Do you know that more than once 
I have been ready to cut my throat about 
a woman on Monday, and by Saturday 
have forgotten what shape her nose 
was? ” 

“ I quite believe it ” (very dryly). 

“I thought — no, I did not think — I 


had a faint hope that this — this attack 
might be something of the same kind ; at 
least, thought I, I would give myself the 
chance — ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Well, at the end of the first week — ” 

“At the end of the first week,” she 
says, speaking with a red smile and a 
pretty curly lip — “ at the end of the first 
week my nose was growing an indistinct 
memory; at the end of the second week 
you were not quite sure that I had a nose ; 
at the end of the third week — ” 

“At the end of the third week,” in- 
terrupts Anthony, taking the words out 
of her mouth, and looking down on her 
boldly and fondly with his happy gray 
eyes, “ I began to blame all eyes that were 
not blue ; and yet it would be monoto- 
nous if they were all blue, would not it ? 
At the end of the fourth week I got into 
the train — 'coild, tout?"' 

“ VoildL tout^ indeed ! ” says Joan, with 
half a laugh, and half a sigh, “for here 
we are.” 

It is true. They have reached the 
gate, through the bars of which six black 
retrousse faces are gravely regarding 
them. The rain has ceased, the great san 
is blithely shouldering aside the sulky 
clouds, the gutters run less madly down 
the road, the stooped flowers and the 
lashed grasses begin to think of raising 
themselves again. 

“ See how fine it is,” says Wolferstan, 
directing her attention to the young laugh 
which is beginning to break gently out 
over earth’s face. “ Why may not we 
lengthen a little our drive ? ” 

“ On the other hand, why should we ? ” 
she answers. 

There is that in her voice which makes 
him feel that further pressing would be 
useless; her tone is so low that it is 
almost drowned by the voices of the 
dogs, who by this time have issued from 
the gate, and, thankful for anything which 
is likely to disperse the ennui attendant 
on Sunday, are giving a hideous out-door 
concert round the ill-starred vehicle. 


74 


JOAN. 


Two are jumping teasingly up at the 
horse’s nose, three are making playful 
snaps at his heels, while Mr. Brown, 
standing on his hind-legs, in which biped 
attitude he looks like a very plain man, 
with one fore-paw on the axle of the 
wheel, is peering upward with his near- 
sighted eyes to see who the inmates of 
the carriage are. In silence Wolferstan 
lifts his young companion down to earth. 
She had meant to jump from the high 
wheel, but he has baffled her by taking 
her in his arms. He is following her now 
into the house. Becoming aware of his 
intention, she turns and faces him. 

“You are coming in ? ” she says, doubt- 
fully, standing in the gateway as if to 
hinder his entrance. 

“ I think so,” he answers, modestly ; 
“ am I not? ” 

For an instant she stands irresolute: 
the bluff wind making her heavy gown 
and her lithe body sway a little, like a 
tall , pale flower, and the blood sending 
crimson messages up into her cheeks. 
Then she speaks. 

“ If you like, and on one condition.” 

“ What condition ? ” (laughing) ; “that 
it is the last offense of the kind ? ” 

“No, not that.” 

“What then?” 

“ You may come,” she says, turning 
her very-much-in-earnest eyes and her 
face swept by a great carnation flush to 
his, “on condition that you promise not 
to stay to luncheon.” 

He looked surprised. 

“I promise.” 

“However much they may press 
you?” 

“Yes.” 

“Not pie-crust promise — mind — a 
real, solemn, binding oath?” 

“A real, solemn, binding oath! ” 

She draws a long breath of relief. 

“ Then you may come and welcome 1 ” 

He laughs dryly. • 

“ You are very hospitable ! ” 

“It is the truest hospitality!” she 
answers. 


CHAPTEE XV. 

Accompanied by a vanguard, rear- 
guard, and body-guard of little dogs, all 
fantastically dancing round and squeaking 
with ecstasy over their recovered Joan 
(for though they sometimes show their 
affection injudiciously, yet, indeed, they 
love her very djearly), Wolferstan makes 
his flrst entry into Portland Villa. Miss 
Bering could have wished that the smell 
of roast-mutton had been less mightily 
and universally pervasive. The whole 
house appears to have turned, in honor 
of Wolferstan, into hot mutton-fat. She 
steals a covert look at him to see how ho 
is bearing it. Manners forbid him to hold 
his nose, and so good an actor is he that 
he seems to be inhaling the warm tallow 
with no apparent inconvenience or dis- 
relish. 

The drawing-room is undoubtedly un- 
changed since before she went to church, 
but yet it seems to her a far tawdrier 
little desert then it did then ; the woolly 
antimacassar more faded, the spar and 
Bohemian glass more flimsily gimcrack, 
the dust on the carpet a fathom deeper. 
She sits dejectedly down on the music- 
stool. After aU, though the music-stool 
gives one some frights, it is really more 
dependable than most of the other chairs. 
He stands on the hearth-rug racking his 
brains for something complimentary, and 
at the same time not too flagrantly un- 
truthful, to say about the apartment. As 
his look wanders round in the vain search 
for something to commend, it falls on his 
own flowers, standing in a gaudy jug, and 
already beginning to yellow and shrivel 
in this atmosphere of gas and mutton. 

“Why do you keep them here,” he 
asks, in a discontented voice, “to be a 
house of entertainment for every nose in 
the family ? I meant them for you.'''* 

“ Would you like me to keep them in 
my boudoir?” she asks, with gentle 
irony. “Bo not you know that poor 
people must have their luxuries in com- 


JO 

mon ? In poverty there can be no pri- 
vacy.” 

He looks dissatisfied. 

“ This is your only sitting-room, 
then? ” in a voice out of which ho tries 
to keep the disgusted surprise. 

“ The only one.” 

“You all sit in it always ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Mrs. Moherley, the two Misses Mo- 
berley, and you ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“If I came I should find you all 
here ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

A little pause, Wolferstan’s eyes un- 
comfortably taking in the full meanness, 
threadbareness, vulgarity of the little 
room. Then he speaks, in a low and al- 
most awe-struck key : 

“E^ery day and aU day for the last 
month, and every day and aU day for the 
next month, and the month after that, 
and the month after that again — ” 

“ Mot all day,” she interrupts, gen- 
tly; “sometimes — often — I sit in my 
bedroom.” 

“ By way of an improvement ? ” in 
quick and ironical interrogation. 

“I am rubbing up my old learning, 
such as it is,” she answers, smiling a 
little, “ and one must be alone to do 
that.” 

Another little silence. 

“Is this to go on forever?” breaks 
out the young man, suddenly, breathing 
short and quick as if oppressed by some 
weight (perhaps it is the tallow that is 
beginning at last to tell upon him). 

“ Nothing goes on forever,” she an- 
swers, gravely. “ It is this thought that 
I think would keep me from being ever 
too glad, and that now saves me from 
being too dismal.” 

He has thrown himself on the little 
sofa, and, with head down-bent and hands 
thrust disconsolately through his hair, is 
staring blankly at the carpet. He looks 
so thoroughly miserable, that Mr. Brown, 
who has a kind heart, goes up and be- 


AM. 75 

gins to lick the end of his nose to com- 
fort him. 

“Sometimes,” continues Joan, in her 
soft, sad voice, while her eyes wander 
idly out through the window to the grass- 
plot, and the hedge ablaze in new green 
in the stormy sunshine — “sometimes I 
wish that I had come here long ago, when 
I was a child. Sometimes one seems old 
at twenty ; to change all one’s likes and 
dislikes ; all one’s points of view and 
habits of thought ; but then, again ” 
(shaking her head slowly), “ I think that 
— no, it is best as it is ; I have those 
yeai’s always to the good ; they are my 
honey that I live upon now in this my 
winter.” 

He has lifted his head, and, as she so 
soberly and sweetly speaks, an idiotic 
and unheard-of longing comes over him 
to snatch her just as she is, sitting poised 
on her rickety music-stool in all her for- 
lorn black — to snatch, I say, Mrs. Mober- 
ley’s niece to his heart, and, piling upon 
her a hundred unseemly fond names, ask 
her to let him try to make life summer 
again to her. In order to save himself 
from yielding to so absurd an impulse, he 
gets up hastily and walks to the window. 
Through his heart is blowing as stormy 
a wind as that which outside is fiercely 
showing the underside of all the leaves, 
and making the tree-tops bow and creak. 
By-and-by he turns toward her, and 
speaks abruptly : 

“Which is your chair, which do you 
usually sit in ? ” 

“That one,” she answers, pointing. 

He mistakes the direction of her fin- 
ger, and is about to sit down on an ap- 
parently whole and healthy chair, when 
the girl’s warning cry stops him. 

“Mot that one, not that one! It is 
not safe, it has only three legs.” 

“ Then why, in Heaven’s name, do 
they keep it? ” asks Anthony, in genuine 
astonishment, eying the decrepit piece of 
furniture which has so nearly wrought 
his woe. 

“ There are so few without it,” re- 


76 


JOAN. 


plies Joan, humbly, looking ruefully 
round on. the poor and scanty household 
stuff. 

Whether his experience of the one 
chair has inspired him with a rooted dis- 
trust of them all, or whether he fears a 
recurrence of his former indescribable 
impulse, is unknown, but he walks again 
to the window and watches the Oampi- 
doglio cat, who, having made herself into 
an arch, and stiffened her tail to the like- 
ness of a poker, is boxing the angry dog’s 
ears. In a moment, however, he utters 
an exclamation of astonishment. 

“ Is it possible ? ” he cries, .turning to 
her with a vexed expression. “ They are 
back already — how quickly they must 
have walked ! They must have run ! ” 

He says it in all innocence, not in any 
way connecting their speed with him- 
self; but one glance at Joan’s confused 
face, shame-reddened cheeks, and drooped 
eyes, lets light in upon him. It is to 
make his acquaintance that the dauntless 
Moberleys have raced through the mire. 

In two minutes they are all in the 
room — all three — yes, even Mrs. Mober- 
ley. If she had taken such violent exer- 
cise every day for the last ten years, she 
would not now be the sized Mrs. Mober- 
ley that she is. 

“ How do you do. Colonel Wolfer- 
stan ? ” she cries, advancing with right 
,Jiand far outstretched, and as much 
warmth of greeting as if he were a long- 
lost prodigal son. “Very glad to see 
you in my house ; though it is the first 
time, I hope it ■will not be the last by 
many! You do not know my girls, I 
think ? No ? Never happened to meet ? 
My eldest,” proudly producing Bell ; “ my 
youngest I ” affably indicating Di. 

“We have often felt as if we knew 
you,” says Bell, in a languishing tone, 
liazarding a glance of sugared bashful- 
ness, “meeting you so often in society.” 

“ Speak for yourself. Bell ! ” says Di- 
ana, gruffly; “I never thought that I 
knew Colonel WoKerstan — I always knew 
that I did not.” 


“ I hope you will always know me 
for the future,” says Anthony, rather em- 
barrassed between an intense inclination 
to laugh, and as intense a compassion for 
Joan. “Fortunately, down here I have 
not a double as I have in London, where, 
in consequence, I am mostly cut by the 
people I know, and greeted by the people 
I do not know.” 

“How awkward!” sighs Bell. Her 
head is still on one side, and her voice 
like that with which the wedded turtle- 
dove in the wood apostrophizes her mate. 

“ Micky was in a fine fanteague when 
we met him,” says Mrs. Moberley, in a 
loud and perfectly audible aside to Joan, 

“ at being left in the lurch. Do not think 
that I blame you, child,” noting the crim- 
son distress of her niece’s face, and mis- 
taking the cause ; “do not think that I 
blame you! Who would not keep a dry 
skin if they could ? — For my part,” turn- 
ing again to Wolferstan, “ I cannot think 
how you could tear yourself away from 
town just at this gay time; I can assure 
you that you will find us aU as dull as 
ditch-water.” 

“We have not been up at all this 
year,” says Bell, affectedly, as if a season 
were with her an annual occurrence. 

f 

“ We never do! ” cries Diana, flush- 
ing. “Do you know,” lifting a largo 
pair of shy eyes to their guest’s face — “ do 
you know that I have never been in Lon- 
don in my life ? ” 

“ This year, at least, you have no 
loss,” he answers, civilly. “ The heat has 
been something unheard of — ninety in the 
shade the day I came down.” 

“You do not say so ! ” says Mrs. Mo- - 
berley, in a high staccato key of astonish- 
ment. “We have been regretting that 
we had put up our furs. We should have 
had them out again only that it seemed a 
pity to take them out of the camphor.” 
A moment later — “ You will stay to din 
— luncheon, I mean — of course. I must 
tell Sarah to lay another place ; you will 
hardly believe it, but she would never do 
it out of her own head.” 


JOAN. 


n'V 

* i 


She is on her way to the door when, 
mindful of his oath, he arrests her prog- 
ress. 

“Thank you very much — nothing I 
should like better I but I am afraid it is 
impossible. I — I — have an engagement 
at home.” 

“Now, what engagement can you 
have on a Sunday ? ” asks Mrs. Moberley, 
with affectionate incredulity. “I will 
not take ‘ No ! ’ We can offer you only a 
plain roast leg of mutton ” — this informa- 
tion at least is needless — “ but I dare say 
you do not dislike a plain Joint for a 
change ! ” 

“ I love it ! ” he answers, laughing, 
thankful for even this flimsy excuse to in- 
dulge his mirth, which otherwise he feels 
that he would be constrained to indulge 
without a pretext. One more glance at 
the fat pathos of Bell’s lackadaisical peony 
face will, he is aware, be the death of 
him. But, in mid-mirth, he suddenly 
stops; he has caught one look of Joan’s 
face — her face of abject entreaty and 
agonized appeal — and his laughter dies. 

Eebutting with civil persistence the 
importunities of Mrs. Moberley and of her 
eldest daughter, he is at length allowed to 
depart. 

“Well, we do really know him at 
last 1 ” cries Bell, with a long - drawn 
breath of triumph, before he is well out 
of the room ; “ what a mercy the rain 
was 1 ” 

“ He was laughing so that he could 
hardly speak,” says Diana, in a mortified 
tone. “ I watched him down the drive 
— he was shaking all over ! ” 

As for Joan, she has rushed up to her 
room, and, flinging herself on the bed, has 
buried her miserable, burning face on the 
little hard pillow. 

“ It will kill me ! ” she says, with 
strangled sobs — strangled for fear of be- 
ing heard through the thin floor. “ It 
will kill me ! as long as they did not know 
him, it was bearable — henceforth, it will 
be unbearable ! ” 


CHAPTER XVI. 

Since that dread Sunday, two whole 
months and one half one have nowroUed 
by. August is come : the month on 
which our short and chilly summer gen- 
erally tries to concentrate all its heat. 

This year, at all events, the sun seems 
to have saved all his ardor till now, and 
to be pouring forth his gathered fierce- 
ness on the throbbing heads of man and 
beast ; on the pining flowers, and the dull 
trees that have lost all the Jocund fresh- 
ness of their June prime. There has been 
no rain for a fortnight, and every day — 
every day an untiring, sickly stare of sun- 
shine. Joan’s little attic-room, with its 
low ceiling seeming to press down on her 
panting face, with its small and blindless 
window, is nothing short of an oven. 
Unspeakably she dreads the night, which 
will consign her to it — the sleepless night, 
when, gaspingly, with strained eyes she 
looks for the dawn — the dawn that no 
bird-voices now usher in. It is only the 
comfortable sound of the far, cold, plung- 
ing sea that seems to keep her alive. How 
far rather would she lie all night on the 
burned grass at the sun-dial foot, watched 
by the cool, kind stars ! 

“ No one who lives in a large house 
has any idea of what heat is! ” she says 
to herself, sitting nerveless and pallid 
by the drawing-room window, through 
which, at the passing of every harvest- 
wain, or more briskly-rolling carriage, a 
great choking volley of white dust pours 
over the hedge and into the room. For 
a wonder, she has the apartment to her- 
self, and, also, for a wonder she is idle. 
Joan is not often idle. "Witness the fre- 
quent darns in the carpet ; the new anti- 
macassars ; the girls’ new bonnets ; Mrs. 
Moberiey’s new evening cap (less abun- 
dantly flowered, of a soberer style of ar- 
chitecture than any of its predecessors) ; 
Diana’s thumbed lesson-books. For the 
moment she is absolutely unemployed. 
Her eyes stray with a wistful languor out 


78 


JOAN. 


of window to the dancing gnats, and the 
sere hot herbage, and her figure, which 
her black gown fits less accurately than 
it did, leans dejectedly hack in her chair. 

It is impossible to grow fat upon air ; 
and during this hot weather her palate 
absolutely refuses the coarse food that is 
offered to it. Two months and a half, 
and in all that time not one bright spot I 
And yet she has seen Wolferstan! IIow 
many times? She is too hot to count, 
hut is mistily aware that if she added 
together the number of their meetings 
they would amount to a considerable sum. 
Not one bright spot 1 She mentally cor- 
rects herself. Yes, one I two, even. Once, 
when suddenly he came upon her, by the 
wash of the morning waves, and yet once 
again, when they sat side by side in the 
wood’s green twilight, and looked down 
the foxglove’s speckled throat. But his 
visits here ! Hot as she is, a still hotter 
flush steals over her body at the recol- 
lection. 

She sits up and gasps. 'Which was 
worse, the day on which Bell asked him 
for his photograph — forcing her own 
upon him; or the day on which Sarah 
emptied all over him the tepid, lumpy, 
melted butter at luncheon ? T'or her pre- 
cautions have been vain. He has lunched 
here ; has seen the table-cloth, with its 
veteran stains ; the foggy spoons ; the 
jagged cutlery ; has had a cracked plate 
violently thrust upon him by Sarah’s 
raven-black finger and thumb ; and been 
hospitably overloaded with underdone 
mutton, which he was equally unable to 
swallow or hide. His flowers, too I the 
divine flowers in their delicate plenty that 
he so often sent her, until one day, with 
miserable scarlet cheeks and lowered eyes, 
with halting tongue and broken voice, 
she begged him to desist. 

Flowers are messengers from heaven, 
but even they may be too dearly bought. 
They are too dearly paid for at the price 
of Bell’s envious raillery, Mrs. Moberley’s 
jovially hopeful prognostics, and Micky’s 
angry persiflage. 


Looking back on the past twelve weeks, 
what has she left her, but an impression 
of mortification, onions, and purgatorial 
heat? 

Pshaw I this weather is asphyxiating ! 
She whisks about her pocket-handkerchief 
in the effort to make a little air-current, 
but in vain. This is in the morning, and 
you may imagine that in the afternoon it 
is not likely to be much cooler. Yet the 
afternoon sees Joan trudging along the 
Helmsley road. What was her idle, pas- 
sive, shielded morning heat compared to 
her active, sun-struck afternoon heat ? 

Mrs. Moberley is spending the day 
with a friend. Bell is in bed with a sick- 
headache; it seems ill-natured to allow 
Diana to go alone ; and to Helmsley some 
one must go, to remonstrate with the 
baker on leaving the establishment bread- 
less. 

Oh, why could not he have chosen a 
cooler day on which to forget their dole 
of loaves ? 

In spiritless silence, with throbbing 
heads and powdery feet, and faint limbs, 
the two girls take their way along the 
gridiron of the high-road, their very 
brains feeling as if they were frying, 
bubbling, steaming in their heads. They 
have reached the town, have trodden 
the hot pavement, have done their errand, 
have again left the burning flags, and are 
on their way back again. Di has not 
even had spirit to peep at the new per- 
cales in the draper’s window, or give one 
passing glance to the awkward squad 
drilling and grilling in the barrack-yard. 

Now at least their faces are turned 
homeward. More than half of their or- 
deal is over. They are about midway 
between Helmsley and home, when their 
burnt and dazzled eyes catch sight of a 
carriage involved in dust, bowling briskly 
along to meet them : a well-turned-out 
London carriage, smart servants, sleek, 
lofty-mannered horses. 

“It is Mrs. Wolferstan 1 ” says Diana, 
in an excited voice, a ray of life and 
animation streaming into her scorched. 


JO AJ^-. 


79 


fagged face ; “ they have come down then, 
at last ! I wonder will she bow to me ? ” 

The doubt is soon solved. As the 
barouche flashes past, its sole inmate— 
a lady luxuriously stretched under a big 
sun-shade, amid a sea of muslins — leans 
forward to bow and smile with accented 
civility. 

“Is the world coming to an end?” 
cries Diana, standing stock-still in the 
dust, and gazing in astonishment after 
the retreating vehicle. “ Mostly she looks 
as if she were not aware that there were 
such people on the earth’s face ! At this 
rate, she will probably soon kiss us.” 

“ Was that Colonel Wolferstan’s moth- 
er ? ” asks Joan, surprised ; having re- 
ceived only a transient impression of 
white veil, yellow hair, and pink cheeks. 
“ Why, she looked like a young lady! ” 

“ I do not fancy that she looks very 
young when you take her to pieces,” re- 
plies Diana, sagely. “There’s a good 
deal about her that does not belong to 
her! I wish,” she adds, regretfully, 
“ that it was not so hot ! I look so like 
Bell when I am red ; I hope that she did 
not mistake me for her ! Do you think 
she did?” 

“ It is not in the least likely,” replies 
Joan, reassuringly, feeling, meanwhile, 
an inward conviction that to Mrs. Wol- 
ferstan’s mind the Misses Moberley are a 
vague fact — a blur, endowed with no sep- 
arate identity. 

At length they have reached Portland 
Villa, and on entering the drawing-room 
find it no longer untenanted. Mrs. Mo- 
berley has returned. Bell has risen from 
her bed of sickness. Both are talking 
pagerly. The cause of the conversation 
is speedily discovered to be a small, un- 
opened note, which, held between Bell’s 
finger and thumb, is having its super- 
scription eagerly scanned. 

On perceiving the two girls, she ad- 
vances eagerly, holding it out to Joan, 
and crying : 

“You have come at last! how you 
must have crawled! I could not have 


borne the suspense much longer ; I should 
have been obliged to have opened it. 
Mrs. Wolferstan brought it,” she goes on, 
presently, with voluble minuteness ; “ she 
came in her big barouche with the C- 
springs.' She did not ask to come in ; 
the footman left it ! ” 

“ Of course it is all that good fellow’s 
doing,” says Mrs. Moberley, with a fa- 
miliarly fond allusion to Colonel Wolfer- 
stan ; “ he naturally likes his mother to 
be intimate with a family that he himself 
is on such very good terms with.” 

“And was Sarah,” asks Joan, faintly, 
her mind reverting to that fair being as 
she had last seep her, in torn apron, dirty 
cap stuck on awry, and with large smouch- 
es of black on her red cheeks — “ was Sa- 
rah quite as she is now, when Mrs. Wol- 
ferstan called ? — was her face quite as 
black ? ” 

Bell nods ominously. 

“Quite! Blacker!” 

I believe that she does it on purpose ! ” 
cries Diana, in a rage. 

“ Probably,” says Bell, her eyes greed- 
ily fastened on Joan, who has unfolded 
the billet, and, with tired white cheeks 
slightly pleasure - flushed, is reading it — 
“ probably it is to invite us all to their 
school-feast.” 

“ To luncheon, more likely ! ” says 
Mrs. Moberley, loftily; “naturally they 
wish to repay some of our hospitality.” 

“We must have a fly! ” cries Bell, 
sanguinely; “we never could walk in 
this weather — a two-horse fly!” 

“I would not order it at once,” says 
Diana, ironically. “ I think you will find 
that our own equipages will be enough 
to convey us.” 

“Will you read it for yourselves ? ” 
asks Joan, coming to the end of the effu- 
sion, and holding it vaguely out to the 
company generally. 

Bell eagerly snatches it and reads 
aloud : 

“Mt dear Miss Bering : 

“Will you overlook the informality 
of the request, and give us the pleasure 


80 


J 0 A i^. 


of a visit? Your grandfather and I were 
snob old friends that I cannot feel as if 
you were a stranger. If it suits you, will 
you come to us to-morrow for a week or 
ten days ? I will send the carriage for 
you at any hour you like to name. Hoping 
that we shall he able to persuade you, 

“ Yours, very truly, 

“Sophia Wolfeestan.” 

There is a blank silence. 

“ Was not it a mercy that we had not 
ordered the fly?” asks Diana, dryly, 
breaking it. 

“We might not be in existence, for 
all the mention she makes of us ! ” says 
Bell, in a wratby voice ; turning the note 
inside out to see whether the name of 
Moberley does not lurk in some over- 
looked postscript; “not even kind re- 
gards, or best remembrances.” 

“ The obligation of our legs of mutton 
does not weigh so heavily as you thought, 
mother! ” says Diana, who, never having 
been so sanguine as the others, is now 
less abashed than they, and can even see 
the humorous side of the situation. 

“ A week ! ten days ! ” cries Bell, 
with an envious gasp, sinking down into 
a chair and letting her hands fall on her 
lap ; “ and the house will either be full 
of stylish London people, or you will 
have Anthony all to yourself ! I declare 
I do not know which would be most de- 
lightful ; what luck some people have I ” 
She pursues, a moment later, with a sound 
of tears in her voice ; “ And all through 
being highly connected. I declare it is 
enough to make one a radical ! ” 

“ Stuff I ” cries Mrs. Moberley, crossly, 
being hardly less disappointed than her 
daughter, and not averse from wreaking 
her ill -humor on her fellow -sufferer. 
“ Be thankful for the blessings you have, 
or as likely as not they will be taken away 
from you ! ” 

“ Thankful for the blessings we have I” 
echoes Bell, with peevish disrespect ; 
“that is nonsense, mother! We have 
not any blessings to be thankful for, and 
you are not in the least thankful for them 
yourself.” 


“We have nothing but the cheese- 
parings and tallow candle-ends of life,” 
says Diana, resignedly; “but then we 
were meant for them ; Joan is not ! ” 


CHAPTER xyn. 

Weee Joan a wise woman she would, 
as she is well aware, reject Mrs. Wolfer- 
stan’s overture. When Date has seated 
you on a low rung of the social ladder, it 
is a mistake to allow yourself to be hoist- 
ed for a small and transient period on to 
a higher one. The temporary elevation 
only makes your low seat the more un- 
easy to you forever after. 

However little acclimatized she may 
think herself, yet there can be no doubt 
that three months’ wear and tear have a 
little blunted the flrst sharp edge of as- 
tonished distaste; that at the end of the 
ten days Sarah will come upon her — Sa- 
rah, the smouched and smutted — with the 
force of a new shock ; that Micky, Bell, 
the table-cloth, will all have to be done 
over again. And Anthony! >^To have 
him all to herself for ten days — as Bell 
delicately puts it ! And at the end of the 
ten days, for there never yet were ten 
days that did not end — how will she be 
feeling ? 

Ten days of unprotected exposure to 
the joyful fondness of his faithless gray 
eyes, to the sugared dishonesty of his 
smile, to the easy, conscienceless, prac- 
tised tenderness of his words. 

“ I never used to be thought suscep- 
tible in my good days, never ! ” she says 
to herself. “I always laughed at them 
when they made love to me. At the end 
of ten days shall I be able to laugh ? ” 

Having thought for a moment and con- 
scientiously answered “No!” she goes 
the length of writing a note of, refusal, 
which is no sooner finished than it is torn 
into a hundred fragments. 

“ I am willing to pay for it,” she cries 
out aloud — she is sitting in her own little 


JOAN. 


81 


room, her elbows resting on the table, her 
chin leaned on her clasped hands — “ how- 
ever heavily I have to pay! No musk- 
plant in a dry summer ever longed for 
rain as I do for a little happiness, a little 
enjoyment! I am dying of thirst. I 
must drink ! ” So, without giving herself 
time for reflection, she writes a line of 
acceptance and s^nds it oft at once, lest 
she should agaip|,change her mind. 

So it comes to pass that on the mor- 
row, in the late afternoon, when the sun 
is beginning a little to relax the severity 
of his rule, she sets oft. The big barouche 
stands at the door, the tall horses tossing 
their heads and digging unnecessary holes 
in the gravel with the hoofs of their su- 
percilious forefeet, her aunt and cousins 
nodding farewell to her, with mixed envy 
and good-nature in their eyes. 

Mrs. Moberley has indeed soon re- 
covered her good-humor. “ All work and 
no play makes Jack a dull hoy ! ” she says, 
jovially. “ For my part, Joan, I am very 
glad that you should have a chance of 
shaking a loose leg now and then ! ” 

“ I will lend you my gutta-percha 
beads ! ” cries Diana. “At a little dis- 
tance they look just like jet ; and though 
they are rather apt to melt if one gets 
hot, yet that will not matter to you, as 
you never do.” 

“ Mind that you notice whether the 
dinner is carved ofl^ the table every' day, 
or only when there is a party ! ” says 
Bell. 

The last adieux are said ; she has kissed 
all the dogs and told them that she is go- 
ing to church, which, though not exactly 
true, conveys the right idea to their minds, 
viz., that it will he impious to attempt to 
follow her. Bell’s parting adjuration to 
he sure not to forget to remember them 
to Colonel Wolferstan, screamed after her, 
dies away, drowned in the noise of the 
rolling wheels. 

She is off ! bowling swiftly along the 
well-known bit of road, where she has so 
often slowly trudged with weary feet, less 
weary than her heart. ‘With* the thrifty 
6 


idea of making the most of it, she leans 
luxuriously back on the cushions, and, 
lulled by the smooth motion and the ca- 
ress of the yielding air, the idea strikes 
her, “ Has it possibly been a most ugly 
dream ? ” Is she driving home to Dering 
to dinner ? Will by-and-by the four gray 
towers rise in familiar solemnity on her 
sight against, the lustre of the opulent 
sky? 

For one happy moment she nurses the 
idle notion. Then her eyes fall on the 
men-servants, and the dream dissolves; 
the liveries are different, and on the but- 
tons the wolf shows his snarling teeth 
where the Dering lion was wont to ramp. 
Through -the iron gates, between whose 
bars Diana and she liad thrust their envi- 
ous hot faces, in meagre survey, on the 
day after her arrival ; through the park, 
where, above the deep-green bracken, 
high-crowned heads are seen to tosf and 
glance; a glimpse of dazzling garden- 
squares, and of sunshiny fountains coolly 
playing; and then, with a sweep, they 
drive up to the door, and the great bay 
horses stand still.. 

There is no need to open the door. 
It is already hospitably thrown back; 
and in the aperture stands a man less 
soberly clad than a butler, less floridly 
glorious than a footman — a man dressed 
all in virgin white, like a lily, a debutante^ 
or a cricketer. On his feet are cricketing- 
shoes, on his head brown hair, sheeny as 
only young hair ever is; on his cheeks 
and nose a coppery shining, which shows 
how, through the long summer day, the 
sun has been doing his wicked will upon 
him; in his eyes — the only part of his 
face to which the hot day’s work has 
been unable to do any despite — a great, 
young jollity and gladness. He is here, 
then ! The ten days have begun. Only 
ten ! one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, 
eight, nine, ten ! 

She is out of the carriage, through 
the porch, away from the men-servants, 
in an inner hall before he gives her much 
greeting. There and then — they two be- 


82 


JOAN. 


ing quite alone, a moderate richly-colored 
light, filtering through the old and mel- 
low dyes of a stained window, on their 
heads, and only dead stags’ eyes staring 
glassily at them from the walls — she finds 
that both her hands are in his, and that 
he is saying to her most gravely, though 
with a smile — 

“ Welcome ! welcome ! welcome ! ” 
three times, and emphasizing each repe- 
tition by a little pressure of her fingers. 
It would be pleasant to leave them in his, 
where, indeed, they feel most comfort- 
ably at home; she therefore instantly 
withdraws them. “ Now at last I believe 
in your coming ! ” he cries, drawing a 
long, glad breath. “ I never did till now ; 
there is something shifty and uncertain 
about you that one cannot reckon upon. 
I am afraid now to move my eyes away 
from you, lest when I looked again I 
shoufd find that you were half-way hack 
to Portland Villa ! ” 

She smiles a little bitterly. “'Am I, 
then, so fond of Portland Villa ? ” A 
pause. Her eyes have been resting on 
the harmonious muddle of the Turkey 
carpet; she lifts them to his face. “Where 
is Mrs. Wolferstan ? am I not to be intro- 
duced to her ? ” 

“By-and-by, hy-and-by!” he cries, 
with impatient gayety, “you have hardly 
been introduced to me yet. A propos of 
that, can you conscientiously tell me, this 
time, that you are glad to see me — not as 
a link, mind — not as a link ! — but as my- 
self, as Anthony?” She is silent. “I 
think you are I ” he says, softly and slow- 
ly, “though you would be t^rn asunder 
by wild-horses before you would own it. 
Have you made a vow to keep my vanity 
at starving-point, prison-diet, bread-and- 
water, and very little of that?” With- 
out waiting for her unready answer, he 
goes on eagerly : “ Then let me tell you 
that I am glad enough for two, for ten, 
for twenty. I am inconveniently, unpre- 
cedentedly, disagreeably glad ! ” 

She looks up at him with a spirited 
issnile. “ Methinks; my lord, thou dost 


protest too much ! ” she says, altering the 
quotation. 

“ Ay^but I’ll keep my word ! ” he 
cries quickly, catching it up where she 
has left it, and altering it too. 

She laughs a little. “ Where is Mrs. 
Wolferstan ? If you will not find her for 
me, I shall be reduced to finding her for 
myself ! ” 

“ It would serve you right to let you 
try! ” he says, gayly. “Well! since you 
do not know when you are well off,” 
leading the way through empty rooms, 
along cool passages, up steps, down steps, 
till at length they stop before a door care- 
fully protected by a portiere. Here 
they come to a standstill. “You have 
never seen her?” asks Anthony, in a 
whisper, with his hand on the curtain. 

“ No.” 

“You have not the slightest idea 
what she is like ? ” 

“ Not the slightest,” whispering too, 
“ Is she like you ? ” 

He smiles a little oddly. “ I do not 
know. Does one ever know what one’s 
self is like ? She does not seem to me to 
have much resemblance to what I see in 
the glass.” 

In another half-moment they are in 
the room, and Joan is making her bow 
to Wolferstan’s mother. The light is so 
dim that that which pervades a twilit 
cathedral at even-tide is garish in com- 
parison. Eigorously closed persiennes 
outside the windows, lowered rose-blinds 
inside, reduce the August sunshine to a 
minimum. Through the gloom she dim- 
ly sees an uncovered gold head, filleted 
with a pale-pink ribbon, stooping toward 
her, and a civil, level, chilly voice say- 
ing— 

“ I hope you are not quite dead with 
the heat? I hope they have given you 
some tea ! ” 

“Thank you! I had some before I 
set olf.” 

“ When I last saw you, you were only 
so high,” continues Mrs. Wolferstan, hold- 
ing a thin, pale hand heavily freighted 


JOAN. 


83 


with diamonds at a level of about a foot 
from the floor; “it was at Dering; you 
used to call me the pretty la^. Do you 
recollect ? No ? ” 

They are seated side by side on a 
lounge, with their backs carefully turned 
to the feeble light. Joan’s eyes are fixed 
on her hostess : on the bright locks 
whose liberal gold has spread even over 
the parting ; on the white-muslin gown, 
generously open at the thin, unyouthful 
neck (Joan’s own milky throat is clothed 
up to the chin). She shakes her head. 
“ I do not remember.” 

“ But you did call me so, all the 
same ! ” repeats the other, her even voice 
taking a little sharpness of tone. A mo- 
ment later, with recovered blandness: 
“ Do you know I rather feel as if we had 
lured you here under false pretenses? 
Has Anthony told you we are quite, quite, 
quite alone ? ” 

Anthony nods. “ It is true,” he says, 
laconically. “ Do you mind ? ” 

“By-and-by,” continues Mrs. Wolfer- 
stan, coldly smiling, “ I hope we shall be 
a little more amusing. In about a week 
we may perhaps find some playfellows. 
Anthony dear ” (with a tart change of 
tone), “ why will you always leave the 
door open ? There comes in such a glare 
from the passage as I am sure must be 
blinding poor Miss Dering.” 

Anthony gets up docilely, and shuts 
the door, successfully excluding thereby 
one small, weak shaft of God’s good light, 
which was modestly trying to steal in; 
and again they sit in complete gloom. 
Ten minutes later, Mrs. Wolferstan hav- 
ing been summoned away to a colloquy 
with her maid, Anthony and Joan are 
again tete-d,-tete. The moment that this 
is the case, he cries out in an exasperated 
voice : 

“ Why, in Heaven’s name, could not 
you say that you recollected calling her 
the pretty lady ? it would have made all 
the difference ! ” 

“ But I did not I ” answers Joan, open- 
ing a pair of distressed blue eyes. 


“ Pooh ! ” he cries, laughingj yet 
vexed ; “ qu'est ce que ga fait ? Such a 
fib would have been counted to you for 
righteousness ! ” 


CHAPTER XVHI. 

The butler’s practised hand has made 
its daily assault upon the Abbey gong; 
and the four people to whom its loud 
whirring has appealed are seated round 
the dinner-table. How delightful to be 
going to eat one’s dinner without having 
had the whole bloom taken off the affair 
— without having had its existence forced 
upon one’s notice for three preceding 
hours by the all-pervasive smell of the 
rampant onion ! There might not be such 
a bulb m existence, for all that one per- 
ceives of it here. 

Joan has made her entry into the din- 
ing-room, with her hand on the back of 
a wheeled chair, which is the nearest ap- 
proach to taking her into dinner of 
which the master of the house is capa- 
ble. For he, poor old gentleman, is in 
very indifferent repair, both of mind and 
body, and is rolled in, nodding a good 
deal and smiling foolishly, until snubbed 
into gravity by an austere valet, who 
cuts up his dinner and blows- his nose for 
him. 

“ He only dines with us when we are 
alone, of course! ” says Mrs. Wolferstan, 
in calm apology ; “ but I thought you 
would not mind! — no — it amuses him 
seeing strangers and talking to them ; ho 
will answer you quite rationally some- 
times.” 

So now they are seated, while quiet- 
footed, swift servants ply them with many 
palate-tickling dishes. Joan thinks of 
Sarah laboring round the table in creaky 
shoes and smutty fingers, blowing the 
while like an asthmatic grampus, and 
praises God for the change in her cir- 
cumstances. For the first time since 
leaving Dering, she is dining. Scores of 


84 


JO AIT. 


times she has eaten — eaten from a sense 
of duty, and to keep the wheels of the 
machine going — but dined not once. 
Each dish tastes more deliciously than its 
predecessor; and after a long course of 
tepid water and sour small -beer, how 
pleasantly the Veuve Clicquot, daintily 
sipped, stirs the blood in her young 
veins ! 

“I am an epicure! ” she says to her- 
self in shocked surprise ; “ good food or 
bad food makes a perceptible difference 
in my happiness! to be, at my age, already 
a gourmet ! ” 

In order to distract her attention from 
her own gluttony, and relying on his 
wife’s account of his powers of conversa- 
tion, she hazards a timid observation to 
her host and neighbor, to the effect that 
“it is a fine day! ” and is much abashed 
at having her cheerfully-meant remark 
received with a burst of tears. 

“Yes, it is a very fine day! ” (sob- 
b^’ng). 

In great discomfiture she looks across 
the garden of late roses, that spreads in 
red pomp and perfume over the table be- 
tween them, at Anthony, who nods reas- 
suringly, and says : 

“ It is all right ! he usually does it ! ” 

She wishes that he would not nod ; 
he has a look of his father when he does. 

“ Were not you very sorry to leave 
Periqg?” asks Mrs. Wolferstan, present- 
ly, drawing still more deeply down the 
already large and opaque candle-shade 
over the candle nearest her ; “ but I am 
silly — of course you were! sweet old 
spot! I am sure” (with a sigh), “no 
one can have pleasanter associations with 
it than I ! ” 

Joan is silent. When her old home is 
mentioned, she can depend upon neither 
voice nor eyes. 

“Always something doing — some- 
thing going on there ! ” pursues the other, 
her head poised on one side in pensive 
recollection; “last time that I was there, 
we got up some tableaux ; the very best 
of their kind, I think, that I have ever 


seen ! it was during the visit I was men- 
tioning before dinner — the one that you 
do not recd^ect! ” (with a faintly-resent- 
ful intonation). 

Joan is conscious that Anthony is look- 
ing at her, with all his imploring soul 
thrown into his eyes, across the table ; 
that he is even coughing with patent ar- 
tificiality to attract her attention to this 
glorious opportunity for re-remembering 
the so unluckily-forgotten fact. But she 
lets it slip. 

“ In one, I remember,” pursues Mrs. 
Wolferstan with a half-smile of compla- 
cent reminiscence, “I was the beggar’s 
daughter of Bethnal Green; bare feet, 
you know, and my hair all loose about 
my shoulders ” (touching them with the 
tips of her fingers); “the squire himself 
posed me, dear old man! of course he 
was not old then ! indeed lie was Cophet- 
ua.” 

“He was always so fond of pretty 
people! ” answers Joan, fixing her grave 
blue eyes upon her hostess, and wondering 
whether, at that distant epoch, the shoul- 
ders she mentions were as bare of clothes 
and fiesh, and as richly clad in pearl-pow- 
der, as they now are; “he liked to have 
them about him.” 

“And I am sure that they returned 
the compliment,” answers Mrs. Wolfer- 
stan, with brisk cordiality; “at least I 
can answer for myself, but I have always 
clung to my elders ; it has been my way 
all my life I I have never cared for my 
contemporaries ! ” 

Joan looks down at the plump quail 
on her plate, with rose-reddened cheeks 
and bitten lips, to repress the laughter 
rising within her, at the consciousness of 
the dumb pantomime of applause and ap- 
probation w’hich, invisibly to any one but 
her, Anthony is going through, on the 
other side of the table, for her behoof. 
Dinner is over and done with now : noth- 
ing but its genial memory left ; and Joan 
stands alone among the garden odors. 
Her hostess has not accompanied her; 
whether afraid that the moonlight may 


JOAN. 


85 


bleach her gold hair, or the night-wind blow 
the pink from her cheeks, is unknown. 

So, by the fountain, with the slumber- 
ous tumble of the far salt sea in her ears, 
and with an enormously long, slim shadow 
stretching over the fine turf behind her, 
Joan stands. The fountain is no longer 
playing. Though the Tritons have their 
mouths wide open, though the fat Cupids’ 
cheeks are still puffed out, no water issues 
from their cold stone lips. In the basin 
the water lies still as death, holding the 
moon and the constellations on its heart. 
IIow plainly mirrored is the fringe of 
ferns ! each frond so faithfully given back. 
Will she be able to see her own face as 
clearly? Thriftily lifting her gown, she 
kneels on the dewy turf; and, leaning 
over the edge of the basin, peeps. Her 
face is only a featureless blur. She dips 
her hand into the water — then her wrist 
— then almost all her arm. How pleasant 
to feel the cold flood creeping round it ! 
Then she draws it out, and holds it aloft 
in the moonbeams, admiring it. What a 
glorified, pearl-colored limb ! and how 
prettily the shining wet drops race down it ! 
Footsteps make small noise on turf ; and, 
before she suspects it, some one is beside 
her. Ashamed of being found out in an 
employment so babyish and so vain, she 
rises hastily ; and trying covertly to wipe 
her arm on her pocket - handkerchief, 
without being detected, cries out : 

“ Did you ever see anything so long 
as my shadow ? it is running up the house ! 
it has reached the second story ! ” 

“It is trying to get in at my win- 
dows,” answers Anthony, for it is he. 

“ Those are my windows ! ” 

“Are they? But you need not be 
conceited about it ; mine is quite as tall ! ” 
(moving toward her, and standing so 
close beside her that their two shadows 
unite and blend into a single whole). 
“ See ! we are one ! ” (deepening the mean- 
ing of the trifling, jesting words by the 
emphasis of his moonlit eyes). 

“ But we can very soon be two again ! ” 
cries Joan, briskly, moving away from 


him, and turning ber face toward the 
house. 

“You are not going in? ” he says, in 
a tone of strong disapprobation, getting 
ahead of her, and backing slowly before 
her; “until I came, you were good for 
another hour’s moon-gazing! ” 

“Another hour! no — another half- 
hour ! perhaps — yes ! ” (with a fine smile). 

“Am I a fog or a miasma, that I 
should drive. you in? ” he cries, in an of- 
fended voice. She laughs lightly, yet 
restlessly ; and the eyes that, against their 
will, meet his, are full of an uneasy dis- 
trust. 

“ I do not know ! I am not quite sure 
that you are not ! ” 

They are standing still again. Joan 
has stopped perforce, seeing that one 
other backward step will precipitate An- 
thony into the flamy depths of a geranium- 
bed. Above their heads a bright half- 
moon — no crescent — an honest half, as if 
it had been accurately sliced in two; 
below their feet the freshness of the 
hoary dew. 

“ May I ask, are you apt to catch cold ? ” 
She shakes her head. 

“ Have you a delicate throat? ” 

“No.” 

“A weak chest? ” 

“ No.” 

“Kickety lungs? ” 

She laughs a little. 

“ To save you the pain of further cat- 
echism, I will tell you that, as far as I 
know, I am perfectly sound everywhere ! ” 
“Do you like fresh air? ” he goes on, 
eagerly ; “ because, if so, let me tell you 
that in-doors every window is tightly 
closed — every shutter rigorously barred ! 
Do you like conversation ? you will have 
to do without it ! my mother is asleep and 
dislikes to be waked. Do you like light 
and occupation ? you will get neither ! it 
is one of our manners and customs to 
grope through our evenings in Egyptian 
gloom ! ” 

She is silent. 

“Not convinced yet? ” he cries, in a 


86 


JOAl^. 


tono of impatient astonishment, but half 
feigned-; “then go! buy dearly the expe- 
rience that I was willing to give you for 
nothing! ” 

But, with the permission to go, she 
seems to lose the inclination. 

“What time is it?” she asks, after 
thinking a moment; “take out your 
watch! I have not one.” Then as he 
obeys her, and they both stoop over the 
little disk, “ There ! ” she says, placing 
one small moonlit finger firmly on a fig- 
ure on the dial-plate, “I will stay till 
then ! ” 

“ A beggarly quarter of an hour ! ” 
says the young man, grumbling ; “ what 
can one say in a quarter of an hour ? ” 

“ If one speaks quickly one can say an 
immense number of sentences ! ” answers 
Joan, demurely; “thousands, I should 
think; had not you better begin at 
once ? ” 

But he seems in no hurry to comply 
with her suggestion. Slowly, and in a 
luxury of silence, they step side by side 
through the windless night. Above their 
heads in the suave, far sky, God’s count- 
less, noiseless armies are all awake and 
ashine. Thin trails of silvered clouds are 
fiung hither and thither across the deep- 
blue space. One is even thrown, like a 
lawny veil, about the moon’s face ; but 
it is so transparent, so luminous, that she 
looks through it with hardly lessened 
lustre. 

Joan’s head is thrown back; and her 
eyes and all her face are lifted upward, 
seeking, among the numberless battalions 
of the unknown, the few familiar faces 
of her shining friends. 

“Have you finished counting the 
stars ? ” asks Anthony, presently, break- 
ing the silence. 

“Hot quite!” (laughing a little, but 
not changing her position). 

“ There is no hurry ! ” says the young 
man, affably; “if you are content, so am 
I ; I am looking at you at my leisure. I 
am not at all sure that I do not like look- 
ing at you better than talking to you; 


your face is so far gentler than your 
speech; I am sorry for your own sake 
that you cannot see at this moment how 
delicately and neatly your profile is* cut 
out against the sky ! ” 

If he had meant to bring her look 
down to earth again, he could not have 
taken a better course. In a moment the 
features he praises have come back to 
their usual level, and are turned with 
youthful severity toward him. 

“ Have you forgotten our agreement? ” 
she asks, with soft austerity ; “ have you 
forgotten that I am a man-inend — an 
honest don camarade to be treated with 
rational plain speaking, not to be used as 
a whetstone for banal civilities? ” 

He nods gravely. 

“ I have not forgotten, but you must 
allow that there is a different code of 
morals and manners for sunshine and 
moonshine — all day you shall be a man — 
there! can anything be fairer? — and, as 
soon as the moon rises, you shall become 
again a woman — a most womanly wom- 
an! ” slowly drawing out the last words 
with a lagging fondness, while his eyes 
plunge with a passionate audacity of ad- 
miration into the chaste deeps of hers. 
Under that look she turns her small, sleek 
head about restlessly, and trembles a little, 
as one afraid. 

“I am sure that the time is up ! ” she 
says, uneasily ; “lam sure that it is more 
than a quarter of an hour — let me look 
for myself!” 

He takes out his watch, and, holding 
it up at some little distance from her for 
the space of an instant, hastily returns it 
to his pocket. 

“ Ten minutes more ! ” he says prompt- 
ly; “ only five gone — I thought so! ” 

“A very long five minutes!” says 
Joan, suspiciously. 

They have seated themselves on a 
wooden bench under a tree. From an 
island of black shade they look out upon 
a sea of white moonlight. Around them 
is the perfect stillness that the rich man 
can make about his dwelling ; no noise of 


JOAN. 


87 


rolling wheels, or of drunken men up- 
roariously singing, which has so often of 
late been Joan’s lullaby; no noise, save 
only the sea’s far speech, its comfortable 
voice speaking coolly through the sultry 
night. 

“ There is one great want in the Eng- 
lish language,” says Anthony, presently, 
with apparent irrelevancy; “has it ever 
struck you ? One has to employ the same 
pronoun to one’s sweetheart and one’s 
laundress. One say’s to the first, ‘ You 
are a darling,’ and to the second, ‘You 
have not put enough starch in my col- 
lars.’ Ought not there to he a differ- 
ence ? "Why does not one say ‘ thou ’ to 
the people one loves? I have a great 
longing to call you ‘ thou ’ to-night.” 

In the heart of this thick-clad tree it 
is too dark to see clearly, but his voice 
sounds dangerously moved, and Joan has 
a dim impression of young and flashing 
eyes. She laughs coldly and lightly. 

“Why do not you, then? Pray do 
if you like ; I am sure I have no objec- 
tion.” 

“ You have dried up all inclination,” 
he cries, angrily, retiring into the farthest 
corner of the bench, out of which he had 
before been making cautious and stealthy 
advances like a horned snail out of its 
shell. “As long as I live I shall never 
wish to call you ‘thOu’ again I if there 
were any colder pronoun than ‘you,’ I 
should make a point of employing it.” 

She laughs again mockingly. 

“ He, she, they, it ; I give you your 
choice of them all. I will answer to any 
one of them.” 

As she speaks she rises, and, leaving 
his side, steps softly forth into the moon- 
light again. They have left the great 
main garden, with its terraces, its million 
bedding plants, its ingenious, unlovely 
flower mosaics. They are in the seclusion 
of a little ancient parterre that has sur- 
vived from the olden time. Here formal 
bed box-edged answers to formal bed. 
Here the yew-peacock still keeps his 
shape; here many well-smelling out-of- 


fashion dwellers in old gardens have taken 
refuge, watched over by a quiet garden 
god done in stone, while around a tall 
trellis, over-flung by clematis, up-climbed 
by roses, profuse almost as June’s, makes 
a high, close wall. 

“ AYe will come here every night,” 
says Anthony, following her, and stand- 
ing by her side beneath the trellis; 
“ every night I wiU gather you a bunch 
of roses.” As he speaks he stretches out 
his right arm far and high, and, plucking 
bloom after bloom, gives them one by 
one to her. “ Here is one creamy-white 
like your throat; here is another warmly 
red as one of your ears is now ; which 
ear is it, the left ? ah, then some one is 
speaking ill of you I what a ruflian he 
must be ! here is another brightly pink 
as your nostrils were to-day, when the 
sun shone through them.” 

“And this?” cries Joan, in a mis- 
chievous voice, making a snatch at a 
deep-yellow rose which droops just above 
her head — a rose golden-hearted as the 
yolk of an egg — “ which of my features 
is this like ? ” 

He stops abruptly, and his arm drops 
to his side. 

“ I give you up,” he cries, in a dis- 
gusted voice; “I have done with you; 
for warping, searing, withering, drying 
up all a man’s holiest impulses, I will back 
you against any woman in Great Britain 
or Ireland.” 

“It is your own fault,” says Joan, 
dropping her rallying tone, and relapsing 
into gravity; “how many times have I 
told you that I dislike personal re- 
marks?” 

“At least a thousand!” replies the 
young man, coolly; “and I foresee that 
you will have to tell me so a thousand 
times more ! What 1 one may go into any 
hysterics of %dmiration that one chooses 
over a mountain, a sunset, a glacier ; and? 
before the loveliest thing God ever made,, 
one must stand dumb— mum-chance ! ” 

“But you do not see me for the first 
time,” objects Joan, mollified in spite of 


88 


JOAN. 


herself, and smiling slightly; “ perhaps I 
might forgive you, if my beauty ” (with 
a little ironical accent) “ burst upon you 
to-night with the shock of a surprise, but 
by now you surely have had time to grow 
used to it ! ” 

“ Have I ? ” answers the young man, 
with trenchant emphasis, “ when, pray ? 
when have I ever had a really good, long, 
leisurely look at or talk with you? a 
skimped half-hour here — a meagre ten 
minutes there — are all the pay I have 
had for the long and many hours which I 
have spent sitting on hard stiles and 
dodging behind prickly hedges to catch a 
sight of you! You do not believe me 1 ” 
(noting the gentle skepticism of her slow, 
moonlit smile). “ I give you my word of 
honor that I know every rung of that lad- 
der-stile that leads into the Helmsley road 
as well as I know my own features ! I 
could tell you how many bricks there are 
in each wall of Portland Villa ; I know 
the shape of the chimney-pots far better 
than I know the shape of my own nose ! ” 
Again she smiles, with a small, disbeliev- 
ing head-shake, while her eyes droop to 
the fine, drenched sward at her feet, and 
her right hand slowly waves about her 
dewy rose-bunch. “And if I came to 
call,” pursues the young man, pricked 
,into greater heat and emphasis by her in- 
credulity, “ you know, as well as I do, that 
1 came as often as decency would permit, 
and several times oftener; what profit 
had I ? Once, after I left, I counted the 
remarks you had made during my visit ; 
they were five, and, of them, three were 
‘Yes,’ and one was ‘No.’ ” 

“ Other people were talking,” answers 
Joan, apologetically; “you know that it 
is only among rooks or geese that it is 
considered good manners for every one 
to speak at once.” 

Anthony is silent, but it 4s clearly not 
the silence' of conviction. 

“You know,” continues Joan, depre- 
catingly, “ that to them it is a great treat 
to talk to you.” 

“ To them! ” repeats Anthony, with a 


short and rather offended laugh ; “ thank 
you for the emphasis! ” 

“ They so seldom meet a man of your 
class — of your type,” pursues the girl, not 
heeding his interruption ; “ and — and — 
of course they do not know — they do not 
understand ! ” A moment later, with pain- 
fully hot cheeks and quickened breath: 
'‘'‘Apropos of that, 1 have a favor to ask 
of you ; now that we are alone I must not 
lose the opportunity; I want” — (lifting 
two meek, troubled eyes to his expectant 
face) — “I want to make you promise 
never to come and call upon me again.” 

“Afeyer to come and call upon you 
again I ” 

“I know,” continues Joan, beginning 
to speak very fast, and still looking at 
him humbly yet steadily — “I know that 
you mean it in all kindness and civility, 
but if you knew ” (with an unmistakable 
accent of sincerity) — “ if you knew how 
I hate your visits ! ” 

“ Thank you.” 

“If you knew how my heart sinks 
when the door-bell rings for fear that it 
may be you ! ” 

“ Thank you ! ” 

“ I grow hot, I grow cold, I choke ! ” 
cries the girl, with an accent of deepening 
excitement; “when I see their unneces- 
sary, overdone effusiveness — their mis- 
taken joy in greeting you — when I watch 
you with difficulty hiding your mirth! 
no — do not mistake me ” (seeing that he 
is about to interrupt her), “ you do hide 
it, at least they do not see it; but I! — 
how can I help it? I divine it, and it 
suffocates me! ” 

Anthony is silent ; an uncomfortable 
scarlet silence. Tain would he asseverate 
that the sight of the Misses Moberley and 
their mamma has no perceptible effect on 
his gravity, but the words stick in his 
throat. Did he swear this till he was 
black in the face, he knows that she 
would not believe him. 

“Do not think that I blame you!” 
continues Joan, in a dejected tone, while 
her unoccupied hand idly strays among 


JOAN. 


89 


the gray-green sprays and tendrils of the 
bowery clematis ; “ were I in your place, 
no doubt I should not be able to keep my 
countenance so well as you do ; but, things 
being as they are, they being my very near 
relatives — my closest kin — you may fancy 
that it is hardly amusement that I feel ! ” 
Anthony turns away, writhing invol- 
untarily, as the redundant form and over- 
blown face of Bell Moberley rise in awful 
distinctness before his mind’s eye. “If 
this appalling fact be true, why, in 
Heaven’s name, should she put it into 
words ? ” 

“ As you know,” continues Joan, sigh- 
ing a little, while her downcast eyes still 
stray sadly over the numberless little 
white flowers, and the downy fluff of the 
clematis — “ as you know, mine is not a 
particularly sweet lot ! well — when I tell 
you that each of your visits pours an ad- 
ditional drop of gall into my cup, I am 
sure that I need say nothing further to 
persuade you to leave them off! ” 

She stops : her voice, grown a little 
tremulous, dies into silence. Nothing 
breaks the suave dumbness of the. night. 
A very light air has arisen, and is gently 
swinging the heavy-folded roses and play- 
ing over the garden god’s cold limbs, the 
girl’s soft face, and the man’s troubled 
one. 

As they so stand, Joan resolutely 
waiting for the answer which Anthony 
is equally resolved not to give, the stable- 
clock breaks upon the silence with eleven 
clear, slow strokes. 

“Eleven!” cries Joan, starting; “why 
does it strike eleven ? it must be an hour 
too fast!” Anthony does not answer, 
save by a guilty expression of face. 
“ What time is it by your watch ? no — 
I will see for myself this time.” 

He produces it with some reluctance. 
The hour-hand points to eleven. 

“ It was a pious fraud ! ” says the 
young man, apologetically, but laughing ; 
“ the end justifles the means ! ” 

But the last half of his sentence is 
addressed to himself or the trellis, for 


Joan has taken to her heels, and quick 
as a rabbit is scudding between the high 
box-hedges back to the house. 

Half an hour later she is standing in 
her bedroom, lost in honest admiration 
of the large white bed, the spouted jugs 
and uncracked basins, the whole and 
healthy carpet, and the safe-legged, de- 
pendable chairs. 

“ Half a day — a twentieth part of my 
visit is over ! ” she says aloud ; “ there 
are only nine and a half days left ! ” 


% 

CHAPTER XIX. 

For the first time for weeks, Joan lies 
all night in cool, deep, blessed sleep, un- 
vexed by miserable hot tossings, by weary 
waiting for the dawdling clock-strokes 
as they mark the passage of the sultry 
night; nor is she awoke by the fierce 
sun, who is kept at bay by careful awn- 
ings and ample blinds. Her drowsy blue 
eyes first open on the unwonted luxury 
of a cup of tea brought to her bedside by 
a trim housemaid, upon whose cheeks no 
smuts have found a home, and whose 
gown is absolutely undecorated by rents 
or grease. 

Joan rises gayly with a springy feel- 
ing of youth and prosperity at her heart, 
walks with childish enjoyment barefooted 
on the thick, soft carpet, revels in the 
plentiful hot water ; and, in utter jollity 
of mind, makes faces at herself in the 
glass, wherein eyes, nose, and mouth, are 
faithfully rendered, undisturbed by any 
perverting crack. She has put on her 
gown now — her hot black gown — all her 
gowns are hot and heavy and black. 

“ I look as if I had been dipped in the 
ink-bottle up to my neck,” she says, dis- 
contentedly. As she speaks her eyes fall 
on Anthony’s roses blooming in a china 
bowl upon her dressing-table. She takes 
them out one by one. “ This is the one 
that is like my throat; this is the one 


JOAN. 


90 

that is like my ear ; this is the one that 
is like my nose — my nostrils, I mean.” 
She sighs a little, and puts them back 
again. “ It would elate him,” she says, 
“ and it must be the object of my life to 
depress him.” So saying, and shaking 
her head, she takes the one yellow rose 
which she herself had plucked overnight 
in order to insult her admirer, and fastens 
it in the breast of her gown. While so 
occupied a gong sounds. “ In any house 
I have ever visited,” she says to herself, 
“ there have always been two, sometimes 
three, gongs. The first means nothing ; 
the second means prayers; the third 
means breakfSst; I will wait for the 
third.” 

In pursuance of this resolve she sits 
down on the window-seat (alas! that 
window-seats are so nearly extinct !), and, 
resting her elbows on the sill, takes her 
face in both hands, and leans out in lei- 
surely enjoyment of the new morning’s 
well-scented splendors. But by-and-by, 
as no second gong either sounds or ap- 
pears to have any intention of sounding, 
and as many clocks with voices small and 
big, slow and fast, announce to her from 
different parts of the house that it is ten 
o’clock, she rises and goes down-stairs. 

There is no one in the large sitting- 
hall but Anthony, who, lounging in an 
oak chair, whence he commands a full 
view of the staircase, is looking up every 
minute from his Times with quick, impa- 
tient eyes “gray as glasse.” When, at 
length, Joan comes stepping sedately 
down, her little pointed shoes cautiously 
clacking against the low, slippery steps, 
aud one small milk-white hand sliding 
down the old black banister, he hastily 
throws away his paper, and comes eagerly 
to meet her. 

“You will never be ‘ healthy, wealthy, 
and wise,’ ” he says. “ Do you know that 
it is ten o’clock; not by my watch” 
(laughing), “ but by Greenwich time ? I 
began to be afraid that you had gone 
back to Portland Villa. How are you ? 
Shall we come to breakfast ? ” 


“ Had not we better wait for Mrs. Wol- 
ferstan? ” suggests Joan, hanging back. 

“ We should have to wait some time ” 
(laughing again). “ She never appeal's 
before one o’clock.” 

“ And your father ? ” in a rather 
troubled voice ; for will not the presence 
of even a foolishly tearful, foolishly mirth- 
ful, old imbecile be better than nothing 
as a protection against the dangers of 
this apparently never-ending, still-begin- 
ning tete-d-tete ? 

“My father breakfasts in his own 
room,” replies Anthony, rather shortly, 
beginning to look a little restive. 

There is no help for it. “Fate is 
against me,” she says to herself, and so, 
without further objection, follows him 
into the dining-room. 

He sends away the servants, and asks 
her whether she will pour out the tea. 
They sit opposite to each other in quasi- 
conjugal duet. It is true that at first the 
urn interposes its large body between 
them, but by a crafty and gradual shift- 
ing of himself and his plate, Anthony by- 
and-by obviates the diflSculty, and com- 
mands an unintercepted view of his com- 
panion. It is in the morning that youth 
and complexion tell the most ; at night 
any dingy skin can look white; under 
the benevolent rule of wax-candles any 
human buttercup passes for a lily, but 
not so when the downright sun is search- 
ing into the weak places of human coun- 
tenances, and drawing, his absolute line 
of demarkation ^fetween foul and fair. 
Joan’s skin is as clear and fine as privet- 
flowers ; you might look at it through a 
microscope. 

“We have dined together,” says An- 
thony, presently, neglecting his grill and 
leaning meditatively on his elbow, “ and 
we have lunched together.” 

“ Yes, we have lunched together,” re- 
plies J oan, shuddering a little at the rec- 
ollection of Sarah and the melted butter. 

“ But,” continues Anthony, “ this is 
the first time that we have ever break- 
fasted together.” 


JOAN". 


91 




“Yes.” 

As lie speaks, her thoughts fly back 
to that day in the wood months ago when 
he had so earnestly impressed upon her 
mind the weariness that he would feel 
in sitting opposite the same woman every 
day at breakfast. How soon would he 
grow weary of sitting opposite her ? He 
is not weary yet, apparently. She wishes 
that he would retire behind the urn 
again. 

“ How how shall we lay out our 
day?” cries the young man, by-and-by, 
when, breakfast being at length, to Joan’s 
relief, ended, they stand again together 
in the hall. “You have absolutely noth- 
ing to do ; I have absolutely nothing to 
do : let us enjoy ourselves.” 

The jollity of his tone is catching; 
Joan’s eyes sparkle with a temperate hi- 
larity. 

“ Shall we ? by all means ! ” 

“ But how ? ” continues Anthony, re- 
flectively. “ I know a good many things 
that you do not like, but very few that 
you do. You like the sea? shall we have 
a boat and go out dredging ? ” 

“Certainly not.” 

“ Shall we ride ? ” 

“ Too hot.” 

“ Shall we play lawn-tennis ? ” 

“ Too hot.” 

“ Shall we go into the kitchen-garden 
and eat plums ? ” 

“At once? (lifting her eyebrows). 
“We should never come out again alive.” 

“ I have it ! ” says Anthony, with an 
air of inspiration. “ There is a lake up 
among the hills that you have never seen 
— that I think you have never seem I 
will drive you up there in my T-cart ; 
we will fish all day, and come back in 
the cool of the evening. I will go and 
tell them to put up some luncheon at 
once.” 

He is half-way to the door, when her 
eager voice overtakes and stops him. 

“ Impossible I quite impossible ! ” 

.“ Why impossible ? ” 

For a moment she does not answer. 


save by the slightly deeper dye that 
stains the fine grain of her cool cheeks, 
and her eyes drop to the spotted leopard- 
skin at her feet. Then she looks up and 
says gently yet seriously: “You made 
me uncivil last night, you must not make 
me uncivil again this morning. I had 
rather make no plans until I see Mrs. 
Wolferstan.” 

“ Then you will waste half the day ” 
(in a nettled tone ; she is silent). “You 
might just as well be back at Portland 
Villa 1 ” (with rising exasperation). 

She looks up with a softly concilia- 
tory smile. “ Shall I go back ? ” 

But Colonel Wolferstan has his plan 
a very great deal too much at heart to be 
diverted from it by a smile. 

“ We should catch nothing ! ” pursues 
Joan, persuasively, looking out through 
the open windows at the absolute tur- 
quoise of the heavens. “Look at the 
sky ! and there has been no rain for 
weeks ! ” 

“ Who wants to catch anything ? ” 
asks the young man, laughing petulant- 
ly ; “ of course we should not. I never 
caught anything there in my life ! I do 
not believe that there is anything to 
catch ; but we should get well away 
from everybody for the whole day. You 
have no conception of the loneliness of 
the place : not a soul ever goes there — 
we might perhaps see a heron or a car- 
rion-crow.” 

“It would be hardly worth while 
going such a long way to see only one 
carrion-crow, would it?” says Joan with 
a fine smile. 

He makes a gesture of impatience. 
“You will not, then ? ” 

“Hot to-day ! ” tempering her refusal 
by the blue sweetness of her eyes. 

“It is, perhaps, your last chance!” 
(with a vexed laugh). “I may never 
invite you again.” 

She shrugs a little, and also smiles 
again. 

“ Ho ? Then I must imagine the car- 
rion-crow I ” He walks to the door, but 


92 


JO AIT. 


this time with no elated hurry. “That 
is your last word ? ” 

“ My last word.” 

.He disappears. She watches him with 
serenity, feeling sure that the door will 
shortly open to readmit him. But in 
this she is mistaken, for time passes, hut 
he does not return. She watches the 
hands creep round the clocks’ faces, and 
the pendulums tiresomely swinging. In 
solitude the hours pass ; a peaceful, har- 
monious solitude indeed, soothed by sweet 
smells and the sight of pretty things ; un- 
broken by the loud wrangling of under- 
bred servants in the kitchen, or the shrill, 
peevish jars of Mrs. Moberley and Bell, 
yet still solitude. As he said, she might 
just as well be back at Portland Villa. 

AU the clocks, even the slowest, have 
struck one, and there is yet no sign of 
her hostess, when Anthony at length re- 
appears. 

“I hope it will not inconvenience 
you,” he says, in a rather formal voice, 
walking over to the window nearest him, 
“ but I am afraid I must pull down jfll 
the blinds; my mother cannot bear a 
strong light. Do you mind? ” 

“ Not in the least ! ” replies Joan with 
alacrity, rising and obligingly helping in 
the sacrilegious task of shutting out all 
the warm, rainbow-tinted outside glories, 
and reducing the apartment to a uniform 
pink gloom. 

“ There is no accounting for tastes, is 
there ? ” says the young man, dryly, when 
their task is completed ; then, in a rather 
hesitating tone, “Would you mind — do 
you think you could manage to let her 
imagine that you liked it? ” 

Having said this he rather hastily goes 
away again. Shortly afterward Mrs. W ol- 
ferstan appears. Eome was not built 
in a day, nor is Mrs. Wolferstan built in 
an hour ; but now, at length, with every 
ravage repaired and every breach made 
good, she enters. 

“I am so glad to see that you do not 
share Anthony’s mania for a glare I"'"' she 
says, looking round with satisfaction on 


the rosy, false twilight ; “ that, like me, 
you enjoy a subdued light I ” Joan smiles 
involuntarily. “As for Anthony,” con- 
tinues his mother, “ he would live in a 
glass house if he could ; he sleeps with 
his bed facing the window, and all the 
blinds drawn up. Can you conceive such 
a thing? ” 

Joan can conceive it, for it is the 
course of conduct that she herself alw’ays 
pursues ; but, mindful of Colonel Wolfer- 
stan’s request, she holds her peace. 

“You will not mind my saying so, 
dear,” continues Mrs. Wolferstan a mo- 
ment later, while her bistred eyes take in 
the wintry blackness of her young guest’s 
tout-ememble^ “but your gown — nothing 
can be nicer, I am sure — but is not it a 
little warm ? ” 

“Frightfully!” answers Joan, laugh- 
ing, “but it is the coolest I have. All 
my clothes are adapted for a polar win- 
ter!” 

“Would you be angry” (putting her 
head slightly on one side) “ if I w^ere to 
offer to lend you one of my little morning 
wrappers — ^like this ? ” (holding out for in- 
spection the airy fabric of her cobwebby 
'peignoir') ; “ they are the comfort of my 
life; I Ivee in them. We are as nearly 
as possible the same height, I should say” 
(leading the young girl before a pier- 
glass). “We must be measured — An- 
thony must measure us^ — and not unlike 
in figure either!” (drawing up her thin 
neck, and, with obvious dishonesty, stand- 
ing on tip-toe). 

J oan is silent. 

“When I married,” says her compan- 
ion, moving away from the glass again, 
“I could span my waist with my two 
hands — so ! ” 

“Could you really? ” says Joan, smil- 
ing. “I should find some difficulty in 
doing that.” 

As she speaks she puts her hands on 
her waist, and joining the finger-tips at 
the back, laughs to see the very consider- 
able space that parts from each other her 
small thumbs. 


JOAN. 


93 


“I believe it was an unusual case,” 
sajs Mrs. Wolferstan, modestly. “Of 
course, they said I laced tight ; the fact 
was, that I wore no corset at all I ” 

“No?” 

“Well” (with a sigh), “I am afraid I 
must not let you make me idle! — letters, 
you know, and our post goes out early. 
So sorry to leave you alone I you do not 
mind? No? That is like me — nothing 
I enjoy so much as my own society! — 
‘never less alone than when alone.’ I 
am like that. Well, au revoir ! till lunch- 
eon-tirae.” 

Nodding and smiling she disappears, 
and Joan is alone again. 

These, then, are all the thanks that 
she gets for her wasted morning, all the 
pay that rewards her sacrifice to the con- 
ventionalities. Unable to read by the 
poor modicum of light left, and afraid to 
pull up the blinds, she creeps behind one 
of them, and, kneeling on the floor, lays 
her book on the window-sill, and begins 
to read. While so occupied she'hears the 
door-handle again turn, and, peeping out 
from her retreat, sees Anthony looking 
uncertainly in — half of his body in the 
strong, white sunlight from the hall, half 
in a rose-pink bath. 

He really must not be allowed to go 
away again. 

“You look so odd and pink!” she 
cries out, gayly. 

The remark decides him, for he comes 
in and shuts the door. 

“ The same to you,” he answers, ad- 
vancing toward her ; “ you will find that 
we mostly look pink here — nous autres ! 
it is a little way we have. Mother not 
down yet? ” 

“ She came in here about a quarter of 
an hour ago.” 

“ And went away again ? ” 

“ Almost immediately.” 

A malicious smile curves the young 
man’s handsome lips, even more than Na- 
ture has done it for him ; lightens also in 
his clear, steel-colored eyes. 

“This is the way in which the God- 


dess Ydgrun, or Mother Grundy, mostly 
rewards her votaries, and you see that 
you might just as well have been obliging, 
after all.” 

“Just as well.” 

“ But for you,” continues Anthony, in- 
cisively, sitting down on a small stool in 
front of her, also behind the blind, “we 
should now have been reclining under a 
large gray rock, side by side, eating pdU 
de foie gras^ 

Joan shakes her head. 

“ I should not ; I hate foie grasy 
“ You would have been eating some- 
thing else, then; what would you have 
been eating? I should have been eating 
foie gras."'"' 

“Yes?” 

“ In the brook at our feet — did I men- 
tion that there is a brook as well as a 
lake — a brook ice-cold on the hottest 
summer day ? — a bottle of champagne — ” 
“A bottle! ” interrupts Joan, playful- 
ly, raising her eyebrows ; “ why not a doz- 
en? — we may as well have a carouse! ” 

“ By all means. In the brook, then, a 
dozen bottles of champagne are standing 
up to their necks ; we ourselves couched 
like ruminating cattle on the heather, 
which, as you are perhaps aware, is now 
in full flower ; above our heads the birds 
are caroling their little hearts out.” 

“ Excuse my interrupting you,” says 
Joan, gravely; “but they do not sing a 
note now.” 

“ No more they do ! above our heads, 
then — ” 

“ The one carrion-crow is hovering,” 
cries the girl, breaking into a laugh, 
“ croaking frightfully,” 

“ Crows do not croak ! ” 

“Is hovering over our heads, then, in 
utter silence, more alarming than any 
sound he could make.” 

“We will not quarrel over details,” 
says Anthony magnanimously ; “ and since 
you own that you might just as well have 
been obliging — you do own it, do not 
you? ” 

She nods. 


94 


JOAN. 


“ Yes, I own it.” 

“ And, when next I exert myself to 
make a little plan — ” 

“I wdll hasten to meet it! ” answers 
Joan, her blue eyes dancing. 

“Come into the garden,” says An- 
thony ; “ we will seal our reconciliation 
with plums.” 


CHAPTER XX. 

Of Joan’s visit a whole week has 
gone; and though the proposed duration 
of her stay is now increased from ten 
days to a fortnight, yet there is no deny- 
ing the fact that even so a full half is 
already over. Seven such good days! 
Can the next seven be as good ? Hardly. 
Bell’s envious prophecy has been fulfilled 
to the letter. She has had Anthony all 
to herself. And now the latter half of 
the prediction is to be accomplished. To- 
day the house is to fill with “stylish Lon- 
don people.” At the thought Joan’s heart 
sinks. They may be good — these seven 
new days — but certainly their goodness 
will be of a different character. 

Her mind strays lovingly back over 
the gone week — her own one week that 
none can now ever take from her. Break- 
fast tete-d-tete with Anthony ; a stroll be- 
tween the great yew-hedges with An- 
thony ; rowing on the calm, brown river 
between the banks of flowered bulrushes 
with Anthony; walking on the Arm gold 
of the sea-sands and gathering long-haired 
sea-tang with Anthony; eating mulber- 
ries with Anthony ; quarreling with 
Anthony; forgiving Anthony; gazing 
at the planets and the milky-way, and 
often forgetting to look at them, with 
Anthony. Adam and Eve in paradise 
could hardly have had a more absolute 
duet. For a whole week Joan’s biog- 
raphy has been the biography of An- 
thony ; Anthony’s biography has been 
the biography of Joan. How will it be 
with her life when the Anthony element 


has been eliminated from it? It is as well 
to look at these things now and then ! 
For a whole week no one has sought to 
come between, to interrupt or balk them. 
Not even Anthony’s mother has mani- 
fested the smallest surprise or aloi-m at the 
unceasing nature of their tete-d-Utes. 

“It is my insignificance that protects 
me ! ” Joan says to herself, bitterly ; “ I 
am too entirely undesirable to be even 
feared, or else ” (smiling bitterly) “it is 
his w’ay ! — no doubt it is his way ! ” 

For the first time she has spent a morn- 
ing without Anthony, and has made the 
agreeable discovery of how leaden-footed 
such a morning has become. It has walked 
away as if it had wooden clogs on. 
She has passed the hours by the side of 
Mrs. Wolferstan in the barouche, rolling 
into Helmsley and back again ; along the 
well-known road where she has so often 
tiredly plodded in most unw’illing pursuit 
of the military. Every step seems marked 
by the memory of some mean humiliation 
or paltry pain. 

With a shudder of distaste she looks 
at Portland Villa as they pass — Portland 
Villa — from w’hose windows, for a won- 
der, no heads are seen protruding ; at 
whose gate no army of tight-curled, belli- 
cose dogs is drawn up in battle array. 
This 'phenomenon is speedily accounted 
for, wdien, a little farther along the road, 
they come upon a walking party of five 
persons, whose advent is heralded by their 
laughter some time before they come in 
sight. The procession is headed by Bell 
and the regimental doctor, who have ap- 
parently been playfully exchanging hats ; 
for, as the carriage approaches, there is 
a friendly scuffle between them to regain 
each their own natural head-gear. Diana 
and Micky follow, less playful, perhaps, 
but still agreeably mirthful ; and the rear 
is brought up by Mrs. Moberley, who fol- 
lows swainless, half of her gown trailing 
two yards behind her in the dust, which 
envelops her in a sort of choky nimbus, 
and the other half kilted so unintention- 
ally, unnaturally high as to give to view 


JOAN. 


95 


a great deal of ankle and a broad burst 
boot, from wbich most of the buttons are 
missing. 

“Would you like to stop ? ” asks Mrs. 
Wolferstan, becoming aware of this re- 
markable spectacle, and honestly trying 
to make her words sound as little dissua- 
sive as possible ; “ no ! well, perhaps the 
sun is rather trying when one is standing 
still. I have a horror of coup-de-soleil^ 
so I sde have you I ” 

As she speaks she gives a civil general 
bow to the hot-faced, dusty-footed cortege^ 
and they roll on. It is clear that this 
manoeuvre is unexpected by the Moberley 
party, who have drawn themselves up in 
a row by the side of the road, in evident 
expectation of a colloquy. Diana, indeed, 
has slunk a little behind, looking shame- 
faced, yet excited ; but Bell is well to the 
front, and has already begun a sentence 
in her resonant, loud voice. Micky has 
taken off his hat, and is waving it with 
more than his usual martial ease and as- 
sured familiarity; and the doctor is all 
one friendly grin from ear to ear. Guess- 
ing their disappointment, Joan leans out 
to nod and smile with anxious emphasis, 
and is thus in a position clearly to see 
the way in which all their jaws have 
dropped, and the wrathy astonishment 
painted on three out of the five warmly- 
tinted faces ; viz., on Mrs. Moberley ’s. 
Bell’s, Micky’s. She sinks back on the 
cushions with a feeling of keen mortifi- 
cation and suffering. 

“ They think that I am giving myself 
airs ! ” she says to herself ; “ I, who am 
indebted to them for daily bread ! but oh ! 
I could not — I could not have borne it ! ” 

She is shocked to find how much even 
a week has blunted her recollection of 
them. They are so much, much worse 
than she had remembered them; espe- 
cially, oh ! most especially, Micky. Even 
Mr. Brown’s legs are longer, and his tail 
curls less, than she had any idea of. The 
impression of the rencontre lives with 
her all through the rest of the drive, and 
imbitters it. She cannot shake it off. 


Not even the sight of Anthony, eager- 
eyed, awaiting them under the great stone 
porch ; not even the strongly-accented 
pressure of his hand, as he helps her out 
of the carriage, can quite dissipate it. 
There are only six and a half more days 
on which hers can meet his. After that it 
will be Micky’s, Micky’s, always Micky’s ; 
Micky, whose coarse hot hand ever holds 
hers so much longer and tighter than it 
wishes to be held. Later on, even when 
they are sitting side by side in their 
wonted place in the warm, green silence 
of the sleepy wood, the impression still 
lasts, still stings. It is even deepened 
and complicated by a new and yet more 
unpleasant one, left by a few words of 
Mrs. Wolferstan’s. 

“ What restless people you are ! ” she 
cries, as she sees the two friends pre- 
paring to steal out after luncheon to- 
gether^ and speaking in a sharper tone 
than Joan has yet heard her employ, and 
with a keener look in her stained and 
bistred eyes than she has yet observed 
in them ; “ how unlike me ! give me a 
book — play, poem, essay, what you will — 
and I never wish to stir from hour’s end 
to hour’s end; while you, even in the 
dog-days, you must always be on the 
move — on the move ! ” 

“ It is cooler in the wood than in the 
house,” says Joan gently, yet persistent- 
ly; feeling that she will not part com- 
pany from her last chance of a Ute-d-Ute 
without a death-struggle. 

“ In the wood! ” repeated Mrs. Wol- 
ferstan, raising herself on her white-mus- 
lin elbow, and looking pettishly at her 
son. “ Is it possible, Anthony, that you 
are going to take Miss Dering all through 
that long tangle of grass and nettles and 
brushwood ? ” 

“There is no long tangle,” replies 
Anthony, sulkily ; “ and even if there 
were, it would be as dry as tow this 
weather.” 

“And I am well shod,” says the girl, 
with a deprecating smile, holding up a 
small shoe for inspection. 


96 


JOAN. 


“ Oh, we see that you have a pretty 
foot, my dear,” says the elder woman, 
with a rather aigre-doux smile. “Are 
you an Andalusian ? Can water run under 
it without wetting it? People used to 
be very absurd about my foot once upon 
a time : I remember one man telling me 
that he wondered how any grown-up 
body could be supported on such a tiny 
pedestal.. My boot-maker asked leave to 
exhibit one of my little boots in a glass 
case in his shop-window ! — too silly, was 
not it ? ” 

Protected by this fire of complacent 
reminiscences they move toward the 
door ; but before they are safely through 
it they are again arrested. 

“You will be back in good time, An- 
thony ? you will not be late ? ” 

“Does the tocsin of the dinner-gong 
ever fail to find us in our accustomed 
places? ” asks Anthony, impatiently. 

“ The dinner-gong ! I must beg you 
to return long before then ! Lalage’s 
train arrives at 5.50.” 

“ ! well ” (in a tone at once fret- 

ful and imperative), “ I must request that 
you are back in time to receive her ; she 
will quite expect it. Do you think” 
(with a little dry laugh) “that I imagine 
she is coming to visit me ? pas si Mte I ” 

They have escaped at last; but it is 
not the same thing as if they had got 
aw^ay ten minutes earlier. 

In a dead, stupid silence they take 
their way to the green-wood depths. A 
great stretch of sun-roasted gardens inter- 
venes between them and their refuge. 
He has unfurled a large green sun- shade, 
which he holds over her head. It entails 
such a proximity that they are almost 
leaning against one another; but still 
they do not speak. Her eyes are on the 
burned grass ; his are staring out straight , 
before him. They have been silent before 
now when together, but it was not the 
same sort of silence. 

They have reached the wood. The 
sun-shade is no longer needed. As soon 


as its connecting infiuence is withdrawn 
they insensibly walk a little farther from 
each other. They have passed along the 
winding walk and reached the well- 
known retired seat : no ornamental chair 
with writhen legs, but a simple log of 
wood, over which the mosses have boun- 
tifully spread themselves. Side by side 
they sit, still wordless. High above them 
the Scotch firs lay their grave, dark heads 
together, and keep out the sun ; at their 
feet is the veined and patterned ivy ; 
around them a great spread of brambles, 
with the arch of their mighty crimson 
stalks and the plenty of their berries ; a 
tangle of greenery, just touched here and 
there into early fire by the impatient 
finger of autumn. 

“Lalage!” “5.50!” Pas si lete ! 

These phrases are buzzing and din- 
ning in Joan’s ears, drowning the trum- 
peting of the loud gnats and the twitter 
of the happy finches. At last she speaks, 
without preface, abruptly : 

“ Who is Lalage ? ” 

He does not answer for a moment. 
He is plucking sour little wild-strawber- 
ries, and eating them ; then he speaks in 
a slow, dreamy tone : 

“ Lalage is — Lalage ! ” 

“ She has a surname, I suppose ? ” 

“ I suppose she has ! ” (absently). 

Sup>pose ! '''' 

“ What am I saying ? ” cries the young 
man, rousing himself. “ Of course she 
has ! Beauchamp — that is her name 1 
Lalage Beauchamp. L. B. — I ought to 
know her initials ” (making a face as he 
throws away his last tart strawberry). 

“ Beauchamp ! oh 1 ” 

“Lalage, Lalage! ” repeats Anthony, 
slowly and draggingly, as he clasps one 
knee with both hands and throws his 
eyes upward to the tree-tops, and the 
blue chinks of heaven between; “did 
you ever hear such a name to give a 
sober Christian w^oman ? Does not it 
give one a tipsy, demoralized, Bacchic 
idea? ” 

She makes no comment. Her tongue 


JOAN. 


97 


seems tied up with a tight, uncomfort- 
able string. 

“ Will you hear the tale of Lalage? ” 
asks Anthony, presently, stretching out 
his hand to gather a bit of overblown 
cranesbill, with its little pink stalks and 
long, sharp noses. “ There is a tale about 
her, as you no doubt perceive. I know 
that you will never he easy until you 
hear it ; and, as for me, you know that 1 
always have a diseased pleasure in relat- 
ing to you anything that tells to my own 
disadvantage. Shall I ? ” 

“Yes.” 

She adds nothing to this short affirm- 
ative. 

“Well, then — please attend — this is 
really worth listening to. The last time 
I saw her — at least, to speak to — I was 
weeping copiously, and following her 
round the room on my knees — there ! ” 
lie is not looking at her ; he is looking 
away from her, perhaps purposely, and 
she blesses him for it. For the moment 
she feels that her face has passed beyond 
her control, and that she has as little 
power over its muscles as she has over 
those of his. . “ Have I quite taken your 
breath away?” he asks, still without 
turning his head toward her, but peeping 
surreptitiously at her out of the corner 
of one anxious eye. 

“ Rather ! ” she answers, speaking as 
one that pants a little from being carried 
too quickly through the air, or suddenly 
plunged into the sea ; then making an ef- 
fort over herself : “You were quite young, 
perhaps ? — a boy ? ” 

He shakes his head. “ I wish I could 
conscientiously say that I was in petti- 
coats ; but I am afraid that I was quite as 
big as I am now. I wore her majesty’s 
uniform ; I had cut all my teeth ; I was 
twenty-two years of age. No! — there 
were no palliating circumstances.” 

“Followed her round the room on 
your knees,” says Joan, repeating his for- 
mer words in a stupid parrot-tone, and 
without the faintest sense of that ludi- 
crousness in the situation which would 
7 


have struck her so keenly had the case 
been that of any one else ; “ and — and — 
what was she doing? ” 

“ She was laughing immoderately,” 
replies Anthony, a sort of mirth curling 
the corners of his own handsome lips at 
the recollection. “ Good Lord ! how she 
laughed I and begging me to get up and 
not make such a fool of myself.” 

“And did not that cure you?” in a 
breathless tone. 

“Cure me? bless your heart, no! I 
went on sobbing ; you might have heard 
me from Thames to Tweed. Mine was 
no silent affliction, I can assure you.” 

Joan’s eyes are fastened upon the 
broad sheet of big yellow St. John’s-worts 
that help to floor bravely the wood. They 
are nearly over now : here and there is a 
broad disk, with its crowded stamens, to 
which Time delays, saying, “Pass! be- 
gone!” Until to-day she has always 
thought them handsome, joyous-featured 
flowers. 

“ On my knees,” repeats Anthony 
with a healthy, heart-whole smile, “as if 
any woman were ever won by such an 
attitude! Next time I will go on all- 
fours.” 

“ Did you know that she was coming 
to-day? ” asks the girl, absently picking a 
strawberry-leaf, and closely looking with 
unseeing eyes at its notched edge. 

“ Until two days ago I had not an idea 
of it. It is a kind surprise that my 
mother has contrived for me.” Silence 
— perfect silence — warm, sleepy, fir-scent- 
ed. “ I was certainly very bad,” says 
Anthony, presently, with the sane and 
wholesome smile of complete recovery 
still lighting up his face. “ I sank so low 
that I kissed her door-knocker — a grimy 
London door-knocker. Figure to your- 
self that! I kissed the area-railings; I 
think I kissed the .butcher’s boy.” 

“ And now,” says Joan, gallantly striv- 
ing to speak in a tone of gay and indiffer- 
ent friendliness as one that relishes a 
good jest, and to keep wholly out of her 
face and voice the dull, flat pain that has 


98 


JOAN. 


taken its seat at her heart — “ and now I 
suppose that it will all have to be done 
over again. At 5.50 ” (with a strained 
smile) “your agony will recommence.” 

“Will it?” cries the young man, ex- 
pressively ; “ on the contrary, I live in 
hopes of seeing a successor or two vivi- 
sected. I have invited a couple of men 
with an express view to that object. No ! 
no ! ” (shaking his head with a cheerful 
gravity) ; “ she will not try that again.” 

“But if she does try ? ” asks Joan in a 
low, quick voice, turning away her face so 
that he may not see the unseemly greedy 
eagerness for his answer written on every 
one of its poor features. 

“Let her!” says Anthony, valiantly. 
“ I defy her ! Look at me — look at me 
straight! I do not believe that in your 
life you have ever looked full at me! 
There, that is better ! ” as under the com- 
pulsion of his voice she meekly lifts her 
eyes to his, and in those great pupils he 
sees himself 

“Mirrored small in paradise.” 

“Let her do her worst — ^lier very worst, 
and that is pretty bad, I can tell you! 
No ” (with a sudden change of tone), “ I 
will not say that, either ; it is bad luck to 
boast ; ‘ he that thinketh he standeth let 
him take heed lest he fall.’ I am sure 
that I ought not to fall, for I never think 
that I stand.” 

She has dropped her eyes again in ir- 
resistible dejection. They have failed to 
catch any of the confidence of his. 

“ But without brag,” continues the 
young man, in a brave and joyous tone, 
“I think I may safely say that if, in the 
course of the next fortnight, I walk round 
the room on my knees after any woman, 
it will not be after her ! ” 

A couple of hours later they are both 
standing before the closed door of the 
morning-room, listening. 

“Would it be dishonorable to apply 
one’s eye to the key-hole ? ” asks Antho- 
ny, in a tone half humorous, half grave. 
After a moment: “No, it is not neces- 


sary — she has come; I hear her voice. 
Last time that I heard it I was staggering 
about as if I were drunk ! — do I stagger 
now ? Your necktie is not so white as I 
was! — am I white now? My pulse was 
tearing along at a gallop — it hardly trots 
now ; will you feel it ! ” She shakes her 
head with a little gesture of refusal. “ I 
will have a bet with you,” says the young 
man, in an eager whisper, “ that at the 
present moment yours is beating, more 
quickly than mine! ” As he speaks he 
takes hold of her small wrist and lays his 
fingers upon it. “What a weak little 
quick tick-tack ! ” he says, tenderly, then, 
suddenly stooping his comely head, he 
softly and hurriedly kisses one of the lit- 
tle blue veins, that, like fine threads, wan- 
der beneath the cream of her fair skin. 
“ There ! ” he says, “ 1 am bucklered and 
panoplied ! Let us go in.” 


CHAPTER XXI. 

“ A whitely wanton with a velvet brow.” 

In the atmosphere of thick darkness 
with which Mrs. Wolferstan surrounds 
herself it is always diflBcult — more es- 
pecially to one coming in straight from 
the universal glare of day — to distinguish 
one thing or person from another. In 
Mrs. Wolferstan’s shrine a young man 
may always be mistaken for an old wom- 
an, a dog for a cat, and 'Dice 'cersa. It is, 
therefore, not quite instantaneously that 
Joan makes out which of the two sitting 
figures is the new arrival. A moment, 
however, decides it. It must be the 
stranger who, at their entry, rises with 
supple- jointed briskness, and comes to 
meet them, stretching out her hands, and 
crying in a tone of joy and relief : 

“ xVh ! you are here at last ; but you 
have been as long in coming as the millen- 
nium. IIow are you, Anthony ? What a 
long time it is since we have met ! — four 
— five years? it seems like a hundred! ” 


JOAN. 


99 


“Perhaps it is,” answers Anthony, 
readily taking in his both the offered 
hands, and speaking in a tone and with 
a laugh in which even Joan’s jealous ears 
fail to detect the smallest grain of fevered 
unreality or effort. “If it is, we have 
both worn pretty well, have not we ? ” 

“ It is impossible here to see how we 
have wornl ” answers the girl, glancing 
round discontentedly at the tinted dusk. 
— “ Mrs. TVolferstan, I may pull up one of 
the blinds, may not I ? Why do you keep 
the room so dark — are your eyes 
weak? ” 

Without waiting for answer or per- 
mission, she touches the blind-cord, and 
up springs the red blind, and in flows the 
golden afternoon light, that has been 
only waiting outside for the smallest en- 
couragement to pour in its liberal flood. 

“ Ah, that is better ! ” cries Lalage, 
cheerfully. She has taken her ex-lover 
familiarly by the hand, and has led him 
into the deep bow of the window, where 
she is now coolly and boldly scanning his 
features at her leisure. “ I see no crows’- 
feet! ” she says, with a light laugh; “do 
you? Yes, we have worn pretty well: 

‘ Time writes no wrinkles on our azure 
brows. ’ ” 

For the first few seconds after the 
upward rush of the blind, an irresistible 
feeling of fear and repugnance has hin- 
dered Joan from looking at her rival. 
Now, an equally unconquerable instinct 
of curiosity turns her eyes toward the 
woman, for whose fair sake Anthony 
thought it worth while painfully to travel 
round the room on his knees, and tearfully 
to kiss an unresponsive door-knocker. 

The first glance reveals that she is 
plump. She has taken that earliest step 
toward a man’s esteem and affection. 
She looks again. Eyes moderate in size, 
narrow in shape, but brimful of a cold, 
quick devilry, sparkling like icicles on a 
winter’s day; a short and rather paltry 
nose; a skin that by -and -by will be 
streaky and raddled, but where now car- 


nations lose themselves in milk ; a merry, 
bold, red mouth ; a face that, if you take 
away its coloring, is nothing, that if you 
look at it in profile is nothing, that if you 
pick it to pieces is nothing, but which, 
through sheer gaudiness of hue and splen- 
dor of animal life, drives you into hotter 
commendation than you often give to 
more real loveliness. 

Joan looks away again, utterly unad- 
miring herself, but with a chill misgiv- 
ing that her want of appreciation is un- 
likely to be shared by anything male; 
flesh and color — good of their kind, and 
plenty of them — being generally all that 
is needed to snare the eyes and evoke the 
encomiums of any member of that simple 
race. She looks away just in time to 
catch a glimpse of Mrs. Wolferstan’s 
white-muslin tail vanishing through the 
door. 

“Why has Mrs. Wolferstan disap- 
peared?’.’ asks Lalage, releasing the 
young man from her scrutiny, and ad- 
vancing again into the room. “ Because I 
pulled up the blind ? — not really ? — why, 
we were all grojping ! ” 

“ She dislikes a strong light,” says An- 
thony, apologetically, stepping out of the 
window as he speaks, and lighting a cigar 
as an excuse for not reentering. 

“ Rather hard that a whole household 
should be sacrificed on the altar of one 
complexion, is not it ? ” cries Lalage, as 
soon as he is out of ear-shot. “ I have no 
notion of such selfishness. I shall make 
a point of keeping that blind — yes, and 
one of the others too — up during the 
whole of my stay ! ” 

Joan laughs a little disbelievingly. 
“Will you?” 

“ Do you suppose that you and I com- 
prise the whole party?” asks Lalage, 
lowering her voice a little, and stepping 
confidentially nearer. “ Heaven forbid I 
There must be some one else coming — 
some men. I hate a petticoat party, do 
not you?” Without waiting for an an- 
swer, she goes on : “I always think it ar- 
gues such conceit in people asking you to 


100 


JOAN. 


meet just themselves— just i a family par- 
ty. 1 abhor a family party ! ” 

A little silence. To Joan, the prob- 
lem of the door-knocker is becoming more 
and more insoluble. In ten years how 
coarse she will be— she will have three 
chins I They are already faintly fore- 
shadowed. What a strong-armed lady’s- 
maid — what mighty holdings of the breath 
must have gone to the making of that 
nipped-in waist! 

“It seems a capital house! ” says La- 
lage, presently, casting a quick and ap- 
praising eye round; “are all the recep- 
tion-rooms as good as this? Better? — 
bravo ! I had no idea that it was this 
stamp of place at all ; Anthony never 
gave me a hint of it.” 

Joan smiles sardonically. 

“ Ah ! there is Anthony again ! ” cries 
the other, walking quickly back to the 
window, and beginning to nod her head 
and smile ; “ he pretends that he does 
not see me, but I know better. Dear old 
Tony! how well he looks! he has filled 
out since the days I used to know him ; 
those big-boned, gawky boys make the 
best men after all, do not they ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I suppose that no one but me calls 
him Tony?” says the girl, turning her 
head over her shoulder to ask the ques- 
tion ; “ no ? — I thought not ! Tony Lump- 
kin I used to call him ! How angry it 
made him ! ha ! ha ! ” 

Though it would not seem that such 
a toilet as Joan’s — dead black gown, 
and live white roses — would take a very 
long time in making, yet she is quite the 
last of the guests to make her appearance ; 
entering, indeed, at the same moment as 
the butler, wdio announces dinner. It is 
therefore not till all are seated, drawing 
off gloves, and making the vital decision 
between Julienne and Bisque, that she is 
able to master the details of the party. 
How different the table looks ! so greatly 
elongated! and how far off Anthony! 
Old Mr. Wolferstan, his wheeled chair 


and his austere valet, have disappeared ; 
relegated to an upper chamber. She turns 
her eyes slowly round the table, examin- 
ing each face in turn. How familiar they 
all are, or rather used to be to her ! How 
constantly at ball and drum and dinner 
has she nightly met them ! It seems like 
coming back from the dead to be among 
them again. She always used to keep 
half a dozen round dances at every ball 
for that big guardsman opposite. He and 
Anthony were her two favorite partners. 
She never could quite make up her mind 
which of the two she liked best. Is that 
possible ? 

With a feeling of incredulity, she in- 
voluntarily glances again at distant An- 
thony. He is saying some little gay civil 
thing to the old woman on his right hand 
— a real old woman who does not disdain 
to be an old woman, but wears a real 
cap with strings, and of her elderly 
charms judiciously exhibits nothing but 
face and hands. Finding out by the mag- 
netism which always tells a person, when 
he is steadily regarded, .that his love’s 
fair eyes are upon him, he breaks off in 
the middle of a sentence to turn his head, 
and send her down the long table a smile 
— small enough to travel unnoticed past 
the intervening guests — large enough to 
warm her chilly heart. She looks quick- 
ly back again at the grenadier. Is it pos- 
sible ? And if the cases had been reversed, 
if chance had established her aunt and 
cousins, and consequently herself, at the 
big guardsman’s gates, instead of at An- 
thony’s, would she have loved him in- 
stead ? Is it such a mere matter of acci- 
dent? 

“Must I always love the man who is 
nearest to me?” she asks herself, with a 
feeling of shocked self-contempt ; a mo- 
ment’s refiection, however, reinstates her 
in her self-esteem. “No! Micky is far 
the nearest to me, and I am certainly at 
some distance from loving him ! ” 

She is so busy with her thoughts, that 
people are half-way through their fish be- 
fore she recollects how entirely she is 


JOAN. 


101 


neglecting her own escort. He is a little 
attache whom she used to snub. Dear 
me ! how many years it seems since she 
has had the heart to snub any one ! "With 
hasty penitence recollecting herself, she 
makes some slight observation to him, 
but has no sooner uttered it than she per- 
ceives that her remorse has been wasted. 
He does not even hear her. Between ev- 
ery two mouthfuls he is sending glances, 
heavy - laden with silent approbation, 
across the table to Lalage, who, more 
than ever looking as if she were made 
out of roses and cream — a great many 
roses, and a great deal of cream — nearly 
faces him. To do her justice, she is, for 
the moment, not thinking of him. She 
is eating pink salmon, and pondering, 
with her eyes on the menu^ as to which 
entrees she will choose, and whether she 
wdll be able to enjoy three of them, or 
had better content herself with two. 
People are seldom rightly sorted on the 
first day of* a party. They are like odd 
gloves promiscuously coupled together; 
two left-hand ones, two right-hand ones. 

In the present instance, had they been 
left to themselves, the guardsman would 
have chosen Joan and the attache Lalage ; 
whereas now the guardsman has Lalage 
and the attache Joan. The attache does 
not care for Joan, and the guardsman 
does not like Lalage. When the end of 
dinner frees them from their enforced 
bonds, the true bent of their dispositions 
will be seen. Soon seen now; for the 
ladies have been ten minutes in the draw- 
ing-room, and thank God the days of 
long post-coenal drinking are over and 
gone. 

Five minutes more will probably bring 
them ; but for the moment they are not 
come. There is no sound to be heard but 
the low hum of women’s voices, the thin, 
dry croak of the old ones, and the round, 
liquid babble of the young. Of the latter, 
indeed, two are contributing nothing to 
the conversation. One is asleep, and the 
other, though wide awake,‘'is dumb. 

The sleeping one is Lalage. Immedi- 


ately on coming into the drawing-room, 
she has thrown herself into the most 
comfortable chair in the room — a chair 
exclusively consecrated to Mrs. Wolfer- 
stan’s use, and in which it is a point of 
honor that no one else shall ever sit. It 
is a long, low fauteuil of peculiar con- 
struction, and its position, by a careful 
arrangement of shaded light above and 
around it, combines in the highest possible 
degree the becoming and the luxurious. 

“I am afraid that I have taken your 
chair, have not I?” says Lalage, in a 
drowsy voice, without offering to move, 
as she sees Mrs. Wolferstan hover about 
with wistful and meaning looks, like a 
bird round its robbed nest; “I am so 
sorry ! you do not mind ? no ? — well, then, 
I will not make you uncomfortable by 
moving, it is certainly very well stuffed ; 
please wake me if I fall asleep ! ” 

“ I am glad that you like it ! ” says 
the other, with a stunted smile ; “ it was 
quite my own idea! I took a good deal 
of pains about it ; Howard himself took 
my directions, but” (with a little dry 
laugh) “ we all know that my tastes are 
in many ways rather peculiar; most 
people — and I fancy you — would prefer 
one of these others ! ” 

“ Thank you, no ! ” replies Lalage, 
closing her eyes, and speaking in a voice 
on which coming slumber is already be- 
ginning to tell; “this exactly fits the 
nape of my neck ! ” 

There is no more to be said, and Mrs. 
Wolferstan retires discomfited, only to 
fall into the clutches of the old lady whom 
Anthony took in to dinner ; who, for the 
punishment of her sins, happens to have 
been at school with her, and now proceeds 
to burn her on a slow fire of reminiscences 
and dates. Joan has placed herself in a 
little nooky recess by an open window, 
her body almost hidden by the low droop 
of an ample curtain, and her cheek swept 
by the softness of the night wind. It is 
so soft, it f(?els like feathers blowing 
against her face. 

“ I will not challenge his notice I ” 


102 


JOAN. 


she says to herself with a resolute pride ; 
“ I w'ill not be on the lookout for him ; 
if he find nie, it shall be because he comes 
to seek me ! ” 

As the thought passes through her 
brain the door opens and the men begin 
to enter. At the first click of the door- 
handle, Lalage wakes, with no start or 
suddenness, but with a little rosy stretch 
and yawn, like a drowsy child. They 
must all pass by her luxurious lair ; she 
can therefore conveniently pounce upon 
whichever of them she wishes to engage 
in conversation. One, tWo, three, pass 
by unmolested. Not a word or a look 
detains them. The fourth is Anthony. 
Will he also escape ? It will not be his 
fault if he does not. There is no purpose 
of halting in his face ; his quick eyes look 
ahead of him as one that seeks but has 
not yet found. But Lalage is not to be 
balked by any . such small impediment. 
As he passes within a foot of her, she 
raises herself from her reclining posture, 
and, stretching out one large white arm, 
lightly touches him on the coat-sleeve 
with her fan, looking up in his face the 
while. She has shaken the sleep from 
her eyes ; nor do they any longer seem 
to be wanting in either size or sweetness. 
At the same moment she speaks. Joan 
is too far off to be able to catch her 
words ; but, by her look, she judges that 
they are both kind and salted. Perforce 
he stops. At the same instant, Joan 
grows aware that her own retreat,, has 
become a solitude d deux, and that a 
hearty man’s voice is saying to her — 

“ Where have you been hiding your- 
self all this year ? ” 

She starts a little, and perceives that 
the faithful guardsman’s body has at length 
been able to follow whither, all through 
dinner, heart and eyes had led him, and 
is now deposited in solid comeliness beside 
her, with every apparent intention of 
making a considerable stay. 

“ Have I hidden myself ? ” 

“ I did not meet you once in London 
this season ! ” 


“ I was not to be met.” 

“Have you already given up the 
world?” (laughing). 

“ It has given me up ! ” she answers, 
gravely. 

As she speaks her eyes again stray 
furtively away. Lalange is wide awake 
now ; leaning well forward with arms 
crossed on her lap. She is the only 
decollete woman in the room ; but then, 
probably, no other woman in the room 
has such a bust to exhibit. If they had 
they would possibly be no more backward 
in advertising it than she. What a neck 
it is I What a great deal of it ! What a 
smooth sea of pearl! What shoulders! 
What arms ! absolutely unclothed but for 
the two tiny shoulder-straps, which alone 
hinder her garment from entirely taking 
French leave. With a sickening heart 
Joan takes in these luxurious details. 

“ There is hope as long as he does not - 
sit down ! ” she says to herself ; “ as long 
as he stands — as long as he stands ! ” 

As she so thinks, there comes a lull 
in the universal buzz of talk — one of those 
curious gaps when everybody’s ideas seem 
to fail them a)fc the same moment. Lalage 
only stiU speaks, and Joan’s sharpened 
ears have no diflSculty in catching her 
utterance. 

“Would you mind deciding whether 
you mean to go or stay? to sit down or , 
to walk away ? I should be glad if you 1 
would do either the one or the other 1 ” ] 

By the gesture with which she accom- 
panies this remark — a gesture which 
points confidently to a neighboring chair, 
it is evident which alternative she expects 
him to choose. But for once she reckons 
without her host. 

“ I will do the other,” he answers, 
lightly laughing, and'^moving^ off with a 
haste ’ somewhat suggestive of a fear of ^ 
being recalled. 

But Lalage does not recall him. She ‘ 
only looks after him for a moment, with- J 
out anger, but with a little surprised 
shrugging of shoulder, and raising of 
brows ; then, resettling herself among her 


JOAN. 


103 


cushions, turns with a contented if sleepy 
smile to the attache^ who has pounced 
like a hungry hawk upon Anthony’s neg- 
lected opportunity. 

“You are wise,” she says, with lazy 
approbation ; “ you sit down. I cannot 
understand any one standing when he 
can sit, or waking when he can sleep. 
Can you ? ” To herself she says, “ I shall 
have more difficulty than I thought in 
warming up the old broth ! ” / 

Meanwhile, the chair on Joan’s other 
hand has become occupied, and in conse- 
quence it seems, to her eyes, as if in this 
dim recess a hundred candles had been 
suddenly lit. 

“ A rose between two thorns ! ” she 
says gayly, smiling first upon one, then 
on the other; though, did he hut know 
it, the guardsman’s smile is of a poorer 
quality than the other. 

“ Do not you think that one thorn at 
a time is enough for any rose ? ” asks 
Anthony, looking across at his fellow- 
soldier, and emphasizing this broad hint 
by the urgency of his eyes. He has done 
his brother-in-arms many a good turn in 
his day, in the way of backing him up 
when needed, and effacing himself when 
not needed ; and he thinks the present 
a good opportunity for exacting a return 
in kind. 

The grenadier looks at Joan. It seems 
to him, a ‘priori^ a little unlikely that 
any woman should wish to be rid of 
him ; but in her eyes, gentle and playful 
as they are, he can read no slightest de- 
sire to detain him. He therefore bows 
to destiny and goes. 

The two friends remain alone behind 
the curtain. Half an hoi|T- later a French 
window is, stealthily opened. Wolferstan 
is already standing outside on the ter- 
race. Joan hovers undecided on the sill. 

“ You may set your prudish soul at 
rest,” he is saying a little impatiently; 
“solne one has already broken the ice. 
See that white gown among the trees! 
whose is it ? which of you wears a white 
gown ? ” 


Joan looks back over her shoulder in- 
to the lit room to see who is missing. 

“ It is Miss Beauchamp 1 ” 

He gives a slight start, then laughs. 

“ Of course 1 what a fool I was to 
ask ! ” 

"Without more speech on either side 
she joins him, and they begin to walk a 
little, to Joan’s surprise, in the direction 
of the white gown. It is Lalage ! — La- 
lage — on a garden-seat, surrounded by all 
her little comforts : an escort to keep the 
gnats away; a little pillow to protect 
her soft shoulders from the cold iron of 
the chair-back ; a footstool to lift her 
feet out of the dews. 

“Your mother keeps her rooms too 
hot I ” she says, raising friendly, starlit • 
eyes to Anthony. “ Why do not you tell 
her ? I shall speak to her aboirt it my- 
self to-morrow ; old people have no blood 
in their veins, I suppose. I was asphyxi- 
ated — feel how I burn ! ” 

As she speaks she stretches out her 
hand to him, and he must needs take it. 
Joan looks away, conscientiously trying 
not to observe how long he holds that 
substantial snow-flake. She is recalled 
by Lai age’s voice, lazy and bland : 

“ Do you want to sit down ? — No ? — 
That is right! there is room for two 
here, but there is not room for four.” 

“A hint for us to make ourselves 
scarce ! ” says Anthony, laughing ; and 
they move away. For some paces they 
do not speak. Then : 

“And I walked round the room on 
my knees after her!” says Wolferstan, 
tragi-cpmically. 

“Yes?” 

“To her mind’s eye I am always on 
my knees. I suppose,” he goes on, dryly, 

“ she never sees me in any other posture. 

I must ask her if it is so ! ” 

“Yes?” 

It is a little light word, but to her in 
the uttering it seems long and leaden- 
weighted. 

“I do not mean now!''"' says the 
young man, rather hastily; “not yet 


104 


JOAN. 


awhile, but by-and-by — by-and-by — when 
— when circumstances have proved to 
her that I can have no desire to repeat 
the operation.” 


CHAPTER XXIL 

The night is gone, and anather day is 
come, young, clear, and shining ; a brand- 
new coin fresh from God’s mint. There 
are only six now left to Joan of her visit 
— only six — and then the deluge worse 
than the deluge, indeed, for the deluge 
was at least a cleanly phenomenon, and 
Portland Villa is not. Six days! and 
then the wrecked crockery, the lumpy 
bed, the affluent dirt, the greasy victual, 
Bell, Micky! She runs up the scale of 
her afflictions, and high, high up above 
all the others sits Mr. Brand in his red 
tunic. 

Of this day, however, not very much 
has as yet gone — not more than half the 
morning at least. Breakfast has been 
over some little time; breakfast — no 
longer the cozy duet when He and She 
wooed each other with tea and marma- 
lade. To-day he is almost out of sight, 
and quite out of speech. However, things 
might be worse, for he has an old woman 
on his right hand, and a man on his left, 
and Lalage does not appear. She prefers 
the privacy of a heavy-laden tray in her 
bedroom. 

It is mid-day and past when Joan, 
entering the morning-roorn, finds her at 
length descended and engaged in collo- 
quy with her hostess, who has made an 
heroic effort over herself, and faced the 
staring, morning sun a good hour earlier 
than is her wont. It is only for the fag- 
end of the conversation that Joan comes 
in. Two of the blinds are drawn up, 
and Mrs. W olf erstan is sitting in a corner 
with a hat on and a veil down. She has 
not been out-of-doors, and is not going. 

“There exists no greater advocate 
for early marriages than I,” she is saying 


in her high, frosty voice; “I mean for 
men ; it keeps them out of — well, we do 
not know what it does not keep them out 
of! — it is what I am always preaching to 
Anthony. He knows my way so well 
now, that as soon as I begin the subject 
he — flies! Well ” (with a sigh), “I sup- 
pose that his hour has not yet come.” 

“ I suppose not,” answers Lalage, with 
a curious smile, as she stands basking in 
the full stream of the sunlight ; “ how old 
were you when you married? ” 

“I, my dear! do not ask me! ” (rais- 
ing her pale hands with a chilly laugh) ; 
“I was a baby — an infant. You would 
not believe me if I were to tell you how 
absurdly innocent I was the first time 
that Mr. Wolf erstan saw me. I was in 
short frocks! positively I was playing 
with my doll ! and yet, curious, is not it ? 
he has often and often told me since that 
the first moment he saw me he said to 
himself, ‘That is my wife. ” 

“And sure enough, so it was!” says 
Lalage, still smiling, and gently rubbing 
with one little shoe the back, half shorn, 
half curly, of a poodle-dog, who is taking 
a sun-bath at her feet. “What an odd 
sensation it would be to see a strange 
man come into the room, and say to one’s 
self, ‘ That is my husband ! ’ I cannot 
say that I ever had occasion to make the 
remark — had you. Miss Bering? ” 

Joan shakes her brown head, and 
laughs. 

“Never! I should be too much afraid 
of his contradicting me and saying, ‘ No, 
it is not ! ’ ” 

“ It is not fair to ask you these deli- 
cate questions in public, is it?” rejoins 
the other, with a laugh. “ Come out on 
the terrace, and confide in me.” As she,, 
speaks she puts her hand through Joan’s 
slight arm, and draws her away through* 
the French window, and into the outside 
air and sun-blaze beyond. As soon as 
they are out of ear-shot : “Was not that 
well done?” she cries, triumphantly; 
“but for my presence of, mind we should 
have remained roasting on the spit of her 


JOAN. 


105 


reminiscences till lunclieon-time. After 
all, there is nothing like presence of 
mind.” 

J oan smiles a little ironicallj. 

“Nothing! ” 

“If I had staid five minutes longer 
I should have had to ask her to let 
me take her to pieces,” says Lalage, low- 
ering her voice to a confidential tone. 
“ I long to see how much of her stays on — 
do not you know ? — and how much comes 
off! My imagination always will take 
these odious flights ; I wish it did not. I 
never see preposterously fat persons that 
I do not instantly picture them in their 
bath! ” 

Joan smiles, and stoops to pat Antho- 
ny’s colly, which galloped up, young, rude, 
and well-meaning, a moment ago. 

“ She is not a nice old woman! ” con- 
tinues Lalage, curling up her white nose 
in displeased recollection of her hostess ; 
“far from it! but, even if she were, I 
should not like her ; I dislike all old peo- 
ple!” 

“Yes, all! — now I como to think of 
it, it is only a very small proportion of 
the human race that I find agreeable ; as 
I tell you, I have a distaste for old people. 
No one can really like children, though 
few have the moral courage to own it ; 
the lower orders are in every respect 
offensive ; and, between ourselves — of 
course I do not give this out generally — 
this is quite in your ear — but, between 
you and me, I am not very fond of the 
sick and afflicted.” 

“ If I fall ill, then, I will not ask you 
to nurse me ; ” says Joan, with a grave 
smile, gently pulling the dog’s ear, as he 
walks, hot and friendly, beside her. 

“No, do not! ” answers Lalage, seri- 
ously. “I should be so sorry to refuse, 
but, if you understand, when any one is 
ill or in trauble, my impulse always is to 
go away — I dislike seeing it ! ” A mo- 
ment later : “ The other day I heard of a 
very religious woman who said that she 
never saw a cripple without longing to 


throw a stone at him. Do you compre- 
hend what she meant? No? Well, I 
do!” 

They have left the well-rolled gravel 
terrace ; a simultaneous impulse prompts 
them to seek a tree’s shelter for their 
uncovered heads. Across the scorched 
grass, which smells like ready-made hay, 
they go slowly trailing; a fair white 
woman, a fair black woman, side by side. 
Presently — 

“How long have you been here?” 
asks Lalage, abruptly. 

“A week — a week yesterday.” 

“By yourself the whole time? No 
other visitor ? ” 

“ No other.” 

“A whole week of undiluted Mrs. 
Wolferstan? ” cries Lalage, raising her 
eyebrows and spreading out her prosper- 
ous white hands. “Are you sure that 
you are really quite alive ? But ah ! ” 
(correcting herself, and with a meaning 
look), “ of course there were alleviating 
circumstances ! ” 

Joan looks straight ahead of her, and 
tries to believe that the flush which she 
is aware is very considerable when seen 
in full face may be hardly perceptible in 
profile. They have reached the shady 
domain of a great beech-tree. Under his 
protection they sit down and p^nt. 

“ In a week,” says Lalage, reflectively, 
“ you must have gone pretty well through 
her autobiography; you have heard, no 
doubt, of the time when she could com- 
pass her own waist with her finger and 
thumb? ” 

Joan smiles reluctantly, “Yes.” 

“And of the bootmaker who bor- 
rowed her old shoe to exhibit in a glass 
case in his shop-window ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“And of the clergyman who fell 
down in a fit and foamed at the mouth 
in the middle of the Litany, because she 
came into church in a chip hat ? ” 

Joan shakes her head. “No.” 

“And of—” 

But Joan interrupts her. “Stay!” 


106 


JOAN. 


bIio says, laying her gentle band on the 
other’s lawny sleeve. “You make me 
laugh against my will ; it is dishonest to 
eat a person’s bread, and then ridicule 
her!” 

“Pooh!” cries Lalage airily; “it is 
not her bread— it is Anthony’s ; at least 
that is the way I always look at it. 
Whosever it is, it is very good bread ; I 
never wish to eat better marrow-patties 
than those were last night,” she adds, 
thoughtfully. A moment later, looking 
up discontentedly at the not quite imper- 
vious bough-roof above her head : “ How 
much one feels the sun, even here ! What 
a misfortune a thin skin is ! I shall be as 
freckled as a turkey ’s-egg — you cannot 
conceive how I freckle ! ” 

“ Do you? ” 

“ Oh, if some good Samaritan would 
hut fetch me a parasol — an umbrella — 
anything — from the house I O Miss 
Dering ” (in a wheedling tone), “ if you 
would hut run across the grass — it is not 
more than a hundred yards — and fetch 
me one ! Your legs are longer than mine 
— I will do as much for you when I am 
as slight as you are.” 

“I will go with pleasure,” says Joan, 
rising with good-natured alacrity ; “ where 
shall I find it?” 

“In the hall — in my room — any- 
where,” replies Lalage, vaguely. “But 
you do not mean to say that you are go- 
ing really? Yes? That is right. And 
while you are about it you may as weU 
bring me a hat too — the one with the 
brigade ribbon — oh! and gloves — ixpeau 
de Suede pair ” (stroking the satiny back 
of her own hand). “There could not 
be a deeper depth of degradation than 
freckled hands, could there? ” 

Joan is away ten good minutes. First- 
ly, Miss Beauchamp’s maid is not forth- 
coming ; then the hat with the brigade 
ribbon has mislaid itself ; then she forgets 
the peau de Suede gloves, and has to go 
back for them ; but at length, obediently 
laden with all that she has been bidden to 
fetch, she returns to the beech-tree seat. 


It is empty — Lalage has disappeared 
Not quite disappeared, either; for, as she 
casts her eyes round the landscape, Joan 
sees her late companion slowly vanishing 
down one of the garden-alleys in the di- 
rection of the wood. By her side is a 
male form which she has no difiiculty in 
recognizing. Indeed, when one is inter- 
ested in a person, it is singular by how 
small and distant a portion of him one 
can swear to his identity. She sits down 
on the deserted seat and leans her hot 
face against the cool and smooth beech- 
bark. 

“ It is beginning ! ” she says to herself ; 
“it is beginning! ” 

She has come hurriedly, and the sun 
was strong and cruel. She puts up her 
hand to her head, then passes her fingers 
over her eyes, which have suddenly grown 
misty. They are on the edge of the 
wood-skirts now. In a moment they will 
have plunged into it, and be lost to sight. 
But how is this? They have stopped. 
For a moment they speak together, then 
the man looks back ; not only looks back, 
but turns back. Not content with quick- 
ly walking, he is running over the grass 
toward her. In a few moments he is 
beside her. 

“ You have come to fetch these? ” she 
says, holding up the hat and gloves in one 
hand, and the parasol in the other, and 
lifting patient eyes, quite dry now, to his 
face. “I am sorry that I was so slow, 
but two or three things hindered me ! will 
you tell her? ” 

“ Tell whom ? ” asks Anthony, eying 
the properties offered to his notice with a 
somewhat puzzled air; “oh! I see!” (a 
light dawning on his intelligence and 
flashing in a rather angry smile over his 
face) ; “ she has been making you her er- 
rand-boy! how like her!” 

“Her errand-girl, you mean!” says 
Joan, with a little laugh and shrug ; “ I 
did not mind ! what does it matter ? it is 
all in the day’s work ! ” 

“ It is not in your day’s work ! ” re- 
turns "Wolferstan, trenchantly; “I -will 


JOAN. 


107 


not have yon made anybody’s errand-boy, 
or errand-girl either ! if you run on any 
more errands you and I shall quarrel, do 
you hear!” 

There is such a tone of authority and 
appropriation in his voice that her heart 
gives one great .joy-leap, hut she answers 
coolly and lightly : 

“ I fear, then, that our peace will he of 
short duration, for I foresee that before 
ten minutes are over she will send me in 
again for a neckerchief, or a footstool, or 
a book ; and I am so weak-minded that I 
shall certainly go I By-the-hy, had not you 
better take these to her at once? ” (making 
a fresh tender of hat, gloves, and sun- 
shade) ; “ she is waiting ! ” 

“Let her wait!” replies "Wolf erstan, 
gruffly. 

He has sat down ; and, having plucked 
a low, drooping little beech -hough, is 
fanning the flushed bronze of his face 
with it. ^ 

“You did not come on purpose' to 
fetch them, then? ” says Joan, with an un- 
avoidable streak of satisfaction in her 
voice, as she idly thrusts her Angers into 
Lalage’s too roomy gloves. 

“ To fetch these? — certainly not! I 
came to fetch you ! ” 

“ To fetch me? ” 

“Yes, you.” 

“ 'What ! ” she says, coloring slightly, 
“ have you never heard that ‘ two is com- 
pany and three is trumpery ? ’ ” 

He laughs. 

“ In this case the sentiment is as false 
as the rhyme; in this case ‘three is com- 
pany and two is trumpery ? ’ ” 

She looks at him with a small, fine 
smile. 

“Are you afraid of a relapse? do you 
want me to take care of you ? ” 

He is resting his sunshiny head against 
the beech-trunk, close to hers. Not three 
inches of beech-bark intervene between 
the tips of their two noses. 

“ That is exactly what I do want ! ” 
he answers, gravely ; and for once his eyes 
confirm the utterance of his lips ; “ you 


have taken the words out of my mouth ; 
but I am not at all afraid of a relapse, 
thank you ! ” 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

The days darken into nights; the 
nights slide into days ; and now the sec- 
ond week of Joan’s visit has gone to join 
the first. To-morrow, the party is to 
break up ; and every one to go his dif- 
ferent way. The hungry past, who is not 
satisfied with less than everything, whose 
ever-famished mouth gapes for all our 
paltry minutes, has swallowed it too. It 
has not gone quite so quickly as its fore- 
runner, perhaps. It has been fuller of 
little incidents. In it, there has been less 
of sweet, swift monotony. Fourteen days. 
Each night, when she went to bed, has 
Joan grudgingly deducted one from the 
poor little sum, and now she has come to 
the fourteenth and last. In this case, the?r- 
last has certainly not been the best. It 
has been a day devoted to an expedition, 
which, like nineteen out of every twenty 
enforced pleasure-parties, has turned out 
a failure. The weather has been disa- 
greeable ; the luncheon went astray ; 
everybody has been mismated. Those 
who have had no desire for each other’s 
proximity have, during a twelve-mile 
drive, been packed, side by side, knee to 
knee, in barouche and wagonette. Those 
who have yearned for each other’s society, 
have seen themselves, hopelessly parted, 
in separate vehicles. But this abortive 
fHe is dead and over now, so one may 
forgive it. Everybody is dressed, and 
hungrily looking dinnerward. 

“For whom are we waiting? ”La- 
lage asks, in an impatient voice, of Joan, 
by whom she has seated herself; “it is 
five minutes past eight ! mostly they are 
punctual : I hate being kept waiting for 
my dinner, do not you? it takes the edge 
ofi* one’s appetite ! Good Heavens ! ” — in 
an altered tone — “‘who are these like 
stars appearing?’ has dear old Jezebel 


108 


JO AIT. 


hired a company of mountebanks for the 
evening ! ” 

Joan looks up just in time to see the 
butler throw wide the high folding-doors, 
and hear him announce with equal gravity 
and distinctness, “Mrs. and the Misses 
Moberley I ” She gives a great start, and 
rubs her eyes. Is it a very odious dream ? 
Not so, Joanl It is a cheek-reddening, 
heart-sinking, pride-basing reality. 

Mrs. Moberley, leading the van and 
filling the doorway; Mrs. Moberley in 
cotton-backed satin with gaping placket- 
hole, and straining seams ; on her breast 
a vast landscape brooch, comprising a 
castellated residence and three forest-trees 
in bog-oak; on her head, a large wild 
cap, once, no doubt, a princely coiffure, 
but now, through time and ill-usage, re- 
duced to being, like the Coliseum, a superb 
wreck. Behind her step her two fair 
daughters, clad in draggling muslin gowns 
of the strongest possible pink ; fans tightly 
grasped, held upright like sceptres, in 
their hands; and towering heads that 
smite the sky, and where all the fowls of 
the air might roost. 

It is clear, indeed, that Diana has reft 
Micky’s bird-of-paradise plume from her 
hat, and stuck it into her hair, where, in 
company with a high comb, a nation of 
beads, and a large bunch of roses, it now 
waves in sociable triumph. It is no dream. 
Before they are well in the room, she 
hears Bell’s mighty voice, thrusting itself 
forward before mother and sister, in 
exaggerated apology for their lateness. 
Joan is roused from her painful surprise 
by a low laugh of zest and merriment 
from Lalage. 

“I do not know which I like best,” 
she is saying, in a choked voice ; “ the old 
lady with the timber ornaments is very 
nice, b*ut I think, on the whole, I give the 
prize to the young woman with the voice 
and the cheeks, who looks as if she were 
sitting for a picture of Eolus I — Why do 
not you laugh ? — do not they amuse you ? ” 

“ They are my aunt and cousins — ^my 
first-cousins ! — I live with them,” replies 


Joan, whitening a good deal, and speak- 
ing with a great effort, but quite quietly 
and distinctly. 

“What I” cries the other, glancing 
hastily at her face, to see whether she is 
serious, and looking a little out of coun- 
tenance — “not really? — are you quite 
sure ? how very unfortunate ! but it is no 
use my eating my words, is it ? — what is 
said is said ! — ^I can but request the earth 
to open and swallow me up ! ” * 

At the same moment, Joan is aware 
that her hostess is approaching, with her 
usual undulating girl-gait, and with several 
slips of folded paper in her hand. 

“We are going to make a little change 
to-night,” she says with her frozen suavi- 
ty ; “do you mind? — we have no great 
sticklers for precedence among us, and it 
is tiresome always to go in to dinner in 
the same order, is not it? — so to-night 
the ladies are to draw lots for the gen- 
tlemen; will you draw? — it makes a 
change ! ” and so passes on to deliver her 
little address to the next person. 

Joan has obeyed; and now, having 
peeped with trembling quickness at the 
fateful morsel, crumples it up in her hand. 
“ Wrong 1 wrong! everything is going 
wrong to-day, and it is the last day ! ” 

All the ladies are now provided witlj 
their slips of paper, and are mastering 
their contents. Lalage is opening hers 
with leisurely indifference. 

“Heaven send me some one who will 
let me eat my dinner in peace ! ” she says ; 
a moment later having learned her fate, 
she holds out the paper with a half -mis- 
chievous smile to Joan, crying, “ Shall wo 
change? ” 

Mrs. Moberley is fumbling for her 
spectacles, and, missing her pocket, gropes 
in her placket-hole till dinner. Bell, with 
craned neck, is sending her dauntless eye 
round the room in excited inquiry, as to 
which, of all the equally unknown men, 
owns the name she has drawn. Diana is 
flushing uncomfortably, and looking shy. 
Dinner is announced ; and, reversing the 
usual order of things, there is a stir among 


JOAN-. 


109 


the ladiet, and the men stand still. Joan 
rises and crosses the room with a lagging 
step — he is a long way off — to her guards- 
man. 

“ I believe that you are my fate I ” she 
says, with a not very elated smile ; nor 
does she even hear his expressions of 
pleasure at his good luck, for her thoughts 
have traveled away with her eyes, and 
are following Lalage, as she gayly and 
briskly walks up to Wolferstan, and put- 
ting her hand through his arm, as she 
looks up in his face with a familiar smile, 
cries: “Here I am! pray try to look a 
little pleased.” 

Bell, having at length mastered his 
identity, has pounced upon the ill-fated 
attache^ and proudly sailed out with him 
before half the dowagers. 

Mrs. Moherley, still searching for her 
spectacles, remains seated on her sofa, in 
hopeless perplexity, until compassionate- 
ly picked up by a surplus man. 

And now the newly-assorted assembly 
are all seated; and, however ill-paired, 
have to make the best of each other for 
the next hour and a half. It is always a 
rash thing to say that any one portion of 
one’s existence is distinctly the most dis- 
agreeable that one has ever spent; but 
in after-times Joan was wont to think 
that — (setting aside the great griefs of 
her life) — there were few portions of her 
history that she would less soon have 
over again than that one dinner and Au- 
gust evening. 

There is hardly one of the table dis- 
positions with which she is not inclined 
to quarrel. The person whom she would 
fain he near is farther from her than any 
one else. At his right hand, tantalizingly 
out of ear-shot, hut well in sight, sits La- 
lage, her head wreathed with real vine- 
leaves, like a Bacchante; Lalage, with 
fewer clothes and more neck than ever; 
Lalage making jokes she cannot hear, and 
shooting eye-shafts that she cannot hin- 
der. Exactly opposite her sits /Bell. 
Within one of Bell, Mrs. Moherley^ with- 
in one of Mrs. Moherley, Dian^. Thus 


all her relations face her; nor is she 
spared one humiliating detail of their con- 
duct and appearance. She is recalled 
from her mortifying reflections hy the 
voice of her neighbor : 

“Do tell me about these natives! 
where on earth did Mrs. Wolferstan pick 
them up ? Did you ever see a more ap- 
palling spectacle than the one with the 
big face — our vis-d-vis^ I mean ? she is out- 
and-out the worst! ” 

“ They are my aunt and cousins,” says 
J oan, in an extinguished voice, writhing 
a little. “I live with them.” 

The young man breaks into a delight- 
ed laugh ; he thinks it a joke. 

“Your aunt and cousins! what a cap- 
ital idea! had not you better say your 
mother and sisters at once ? ” 

“But they are,” cries poor Joan, in 
an agony, turning first a painful scarlet, 
then as white as the table-cloth ; “they 
are my aunt and cousins— ray first-cousins 
— and I live with them ! Oh, please 
understand that I am quite serious ! 
please” (looking round the table miser- 
ably) — “please let every one know that 
they are my relations.” 

Something in the irritated anguish of 
her tone at length convinces her partner 
of his error. 

“ Good God ! ” he cries, his mirth sud- 
denly quenched, “how very awful ! — I — 
I — had not an idea — I — really — I do not 
know what to say — I — I — thought you 
were joking.” 

“I know you did,” says Joan, gasp- 
ing a little, and stretching out her hand 
toward a water-bottle ; “ but do not ever 
think so again. I never joke.” 

They subside into an uncomfortable 
silence. Joan looks round the table again. 
When first they had sat down, Anthony 
had sent her from his distant place a look 
full of discontent and discomfiture at their 
separation ; gathered brows and down- 
ward-curving lips plainly expressing his 
displeasure. She glances at him now. 
His forehead is quite smooth, and the 
corners of his mouth are curling jovially 


110 


JOAN. 


upward again, according to their merry 
wont. Lalage is leaning her vine-bound 
head toward him, and is apparently tell- 
ing him some anecdote, at which he is 
laughing immoderately. Probably it is a 
highly-spiced one, for it is only a strong- 
ly-seasoned jest that ever moves a man 
to such extravagance of mirth. It is of 
course right and fit that the host should 
look amiably at, and talk merrily to, such 
of his guests as neighbor him; but Joan 
wishes that he did not do it quite so well. 

As for Lalage, she looks to-night as 
if — were she in her right place — she 
would be dancing and cymbaling, and 
tossing white arms with fauns and hoofed 
satyrs, and tipsy wood-gods, down a green 
forest-glade. 

Joan turns her eyes away, and per- 
force they fall upon her ms-d-vis. The 
attache, through soup and fish-time, has 
exhibited his distaste for his situation by 
a sulky silence'. He now changes his tac- 
tics, and begins to display his ill-humor 
by indulging in the kindly pastime of 
drawing out Miss Moberley ; an exercise 
than which he never in his life set him- 
self one easier of accomplishment. Joan 
would give anything she possesses to be 
able not to see how fearfully well he suc- 
ceeds, would readily sacrifice a year of 
life to be able not to hear her cousin’s 
observations. But it is impossible to put 
one’s fingers in one’s ears in a mixed 
company ; and nothing short of that 
could keep out the sound of Bell’s power- 
ful voice, which, as the dinner progresses, 
grows ever more triumphantly loud. Her 
giggling waxes more incessant ; from her 
hair, loosened by the continual playful 
tossings and shakings of her head, the 
hair-pins begin to drop ; excitement, pride, 
and heat, cause the profound red of her 
cheeks to overflow her forehead and in- 
vade her neck. 

At last, when Joan has begun to cast 
over seriously in her mind whether she 
cannot feign a nose-bleeding or a swoon, 
to deliver her from a situation of such 
wretchedness, Mrs. Wolferstan puts a 


temporary period to her suffdl’ings, by 
giving the long-looked-for nod, and they 
depart. She is standing alone by an open 
window, leaning her fagged head against 
the folded shutter, and trying to get the 
sound of Bell’s loud and amorous pleas- 
antries out of her ears, when she is aware 
that Diana has stolen shyly up to her. 

“ Are you coming home to-morrow ? ” 
she asks, looking diffidently round as if 
aware that the magniflcence of Joan’s 
present surroundings has set a gulf be- 
tween her and her cousin. “ I would 
not, if I were you ; I would stay as long 
as they asked me ; it is worse than ever 
at home. I think we quarrel more and 
Sarah sweeps less. I wonder how you 
will ever bear the change ! ” 

Joan’s leaden heart echoes the ques- 
tion. 

“ How, indeed ? ” 

“You did not know that we were 
coming to-night ! ” pursues Diana, with 
reddened cheeks and mortified eyes. “ I 
saw it in your face the moment we came 
in ; you looked so — so — surprised ! ” 

“Did I?” cries Joan, remorsefully; 
aware that it is only regard for her feel- 
ings which has kept Diana from employ- 
ing a stronger word. 

“A man on horseback— a groom came 
soon after breakfast this morning,” pur- 
sues Diana, putting up her hand to her 
head to feel whether Micky’s banner still 
waves securely from her skull; “he 
brought a note from Mrs. Wolferstan ; 
she said she hoped we would excuse the 
short notice and come to dinner to-night ; 
of course*” (in an ashamed tone), “ I 
know that they did not want us really — 
of course we were only stop-gaps — some 
one else had failed them ! ” 

Joan shakes her head dispiritedly. 

“ I do not know — I have not an 
idea ! ” 

“ How big our heads are ! ” says the 
other, presently, in a discontented tone ! 
“ they are far the biggest in the room ; 
Bell would have it that it was the fashion 
to put ali|^ sorts of things on one’s,. I ■‘ad at 


JOAN. 


Ill 


once ; she said that of course the fashion- 
plate knew better than yon! however” 
(with a sigh), “I dare say it does not 
matter ! — I dare say no one notices 1 ” 

Miss Bering wishes from the bottom 
of her heart that she could echo this 
hope. 

“ I wish that Bell would not talk so 
loud, do not you? ” goes on the girl in a 
lowered tone; “I heard her voice far 
above every one else’s at dinner; some 
one told me that the young gentleman 
who took her in was a lord! was he 
really? I am sure that she thinks she 
has made quite a conquest ; but I could 
see that he was only making fun of 
her ! ” 

A moment later, in a tone of indig- 
nant apprehension : “ Mother has gone to 
sleep, do you see? her cap is all askew; 
I am so afraid that it may fall off alto- 
gether ; do you think I might wake her 
without any one noticing ? ” 

She steps softly away on this delicate 
errand, and, having succeeded in recalling 
her parent from the land of dreams, re- 
mains beside her to hinder her from re- 
turning thither. 

On every previous evening of her 
visit, Wolferstan has, immediately on en- 
tering the room, made for Miss Bering 
as straight and as quickly as if he had 
been shot' out of a cross-bow at her. 

He comes toward her to-night also ; 
but it seems to her sad fancy as if there 
were less alacrity in his step — in his eye 
a divided allegiance. 

He certainly glances once or twice 
toward the spot where Lalage, in Mrs, 
Wolferstan’s capacious arm-chair, of 
which she has nightly taken smiling but 
resolute possession, rests her lazy length. 

“ How pale you look ! ” he cries, dis- 
contentedly, coming up to Joan; “are 
you fagged ? — overtired ? you must be, to 
look so 1 I never saw you so white ! ” 

It is far from his intention to do so, 
but there is something in his tone that 
conveys the impression that her pallor is 
not a becoming one. 


“ Am I pale ? ” she says, putting up 
her fingers to her cheeks, as if touch 
could teU her their tint; “I mostly am 
now I — I had a good color once, had not 
I? — a milkmaid’s cheeks; but” (sighing 
a little) “when everything else I had 
went, that went too 1 Bo not you think 
it was wise ? ” 

“ After all, you are quite red enough ! ” 
he says, his eyes straying vexedly away 
to -her three relations, and resting on 
Bell, who is languishing on the ottoman ; 
two large and well-benzined shoes pro- 
truded before her, while the artillery of 
her eyes plays wifji incessant but unavail- 
ing fury on- the distant and unheeding 
diplomat. “Bid you know” (lowering 
his voice) “that they were to be here 
to-night?” 

“I had not an idea, believe me ! ” she 
answers, hanging her head in utter down- 
castness. 

“It is only another of my mother’s 
surprises he says, with a short, dry 
laugh. 

Joan lifts her drooped head. 

“ Why did she ask them? ” she says, 
in a low, eager voice ; “ I have been puz- 
zling my brain to find a reason; I am 
quite at a loss I ” 

“Are you? ” he says, shortly and bit- 
terly ; “ I am not ! ” then, a moment later, 
in a lighter tone, as if making an effort 
to get the better of his ill-humor, “ have 
you discovered that I am extremely cross 
to-night ? ” 

She smiles a little. 

“I think I have, but do not be cross 
to-night ; it is the last evening ! — be cross 
to-morrow instead! ” 

He laughs more naturally. 

“ I have every intention of being cross 
to-morrow too ! ” 

“Bo, by all means!” she answers, 
gravely ; “ that will not affect me.” 

He knits his forehead, and looks puz- 
zled. 

“Not affect you ! why not ? ” 

“I have not the gift of second-sight,” 
she replies, quietly, “I cannot— being in 


112 


JOAN. 


Blackshire — observe what your humors 
are in Scotland! ” 

His brow grows straight again. 

“Oh, I see,” he says, in a relieved 
voice. “ To be sure, we are all going to 
Scotland to-morrow — all of us ; of course, 
of course. Do not you envy us ? ” 

In his eyes, so sombre and thwarted a 
moment ago, there is a gleam of pleasure 
and mischief. 

“ That I do,” she answers, wistfully ; 
“ it is the first year since I can remember 
that I have ever missed going. Shall I 
ever see the moors — the amethyst-colored 
evening heather again, I, wonder ? ” There 
is almost a sob in her voice as she speaks ; 
then, as if anxious to disguise and slur 
over her emotion, she adds quickly : 
“Miss Beauchamp is going to Scotland 
too, is not she ? ” 

“ Miss Beauchamp too ; do you think 
we would leave her behind ? ” 

There is the same mirth in voice and 
eye which had before struck her with 
surprise. 

“You will set off quite early, I sup- 
pose?” she says, trying by a cool and 
level tone to conceal the hurt that his 
light indifference does her. “At cock- 
crow? before I am up? When I come 
down I shall find an empty house ? ” 

“ An empty house I ” he repeats, but 
he speaks in such a stupid, absent, parrot- 
like tone, that she sees he has not the 
faintest idea of what he is saying. Her 
glance, following his, finds the explana- 
tion. It has returned to Lalage, who, 
looking at him with a laughing audacity 
over the top of her spread fan, is sending 
him unmistakable greetings and invita- 
tions with her saucy eyes. “ Why is she 
beckoning to me?” he says, fretfully; 
“she has been making signs to me for 
the last five minutes. What does she 
want? I shall pay no attention ; there is 
no reason why I should, is there ? ” 

“That is for you to decide,” an- 
swers Joan, a little coldly, while her 
heart, which, through the evening, has 
been steadily running down like an un- 


wound clock, falls an inch or two lower 
still. 

“ I suppose I must, too,” he adds a 
moment later, rising from his seat ; “ per- 
haps she may really have something to 
say to me. I shall be back in a moment. 
Mind that you do not let any one take my 
place. There,” playfully lifting a bit of 
her lowest fiounce, and spreading it over 
the chair he has left — “there, if any one 
offers to usurp it, say that it is engaged.” 
Smiling, he goes, and walks quick, and 
straight, and comely, across the room. 

Joan’s eyes and heart see him (though 
her ears cannot hear) asking for what he 
is wanted. The answer is apparently 
satisfactory, for he sits down. Is it 
worth while sitting down for one min- 
ute ? The minute passes ; lengthens itself 
to five — to ten. At the end of that time 
he rises. Is he coming back ? The night 
is yet young ; there may yet be a good 
farewell talk before them — a talk for her 
to live upon by-and-by. But no, Joan ! 
not so ; the evening is to be consistently- 
painful to the end. He rises, indeed, 
but so does Lalage ; and, stiff talking, 
they saunter away into the conservatory 
and are lost among the darkly shining 
orange-trees. 

“ Had not we better ring for our fly? ” 
says Diana’s anxious voice, presently, 
breaking the silence of Joan’s now deso- 
late retreat; “ our driver is the one that 
always gets drunk! But Bell will not 
hear of it ; she says that if we go so early 
they will think that we do not know 
what is what; but I caught Mrs. Wolfer- 
stan giving such a yawn just now ! I am 
sure that they are longing to be rid of us.” 

Joan shrugs her shoulders a little. 

“Let them long! ” she says, dismally. 

Something in her tone strikes Diana. 

“ Are you coming home to-morrow ? ” 
she asks, looking at her narrowly with 
kind and inquisitive eyes. “ I would not, 
if I were you ; and have you enjoyed 
yourself really — really ? ” 

“ Yes, I have enjoyed myself,” answers 




113 


J oan, slowly, while her eyes — a little misty 
— look dreamily away over Diana’s head ; 
“certainly I have enjoyed myself,” with 
emphasis, as if asseverating what another 
contradicted; “and — yes, I shall come 
home to-morrow.” 

A few minutes later the drawing-room 
door-lock clicks gently, and a black figure 
fiits along the lighted passages, and up 
the carven stairs Joan has stolen away to 
bed, but it is one o’clock in the morning 
before the Moberleys make their bows. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

The emptiness ,of a small house is 
nothing. Portland Villa empty is, indeed, 
far to he preferred to Portland Villa full; 
but in the wide, cold voidness of a large 
liouse there is something that weights the 
heart and pulls down the spirits. 

So Joan feels when she comes down- 
stairs next morning. She had fed, per- 
haps, a faint hope that some change of 
plan, some late-sleeping drowsiness, some 
mis-reading of Bradshaw’s dark page may 
have detained at least one of the trav- 
elers. But no ! In all the broad and 
silent rooms, along all the lengthy pas- 
sages there is no voice nor any step save 
those of the quiet-footed servants. She 
breakfasts in absolute loneliness — worse 
than loneliness, indeed — for, being entire- 
ly without appetite, she is continually 
plied by the butler with hot meats against 
which her soul revolts, and crumpets 
which would choke her. 

It is, perhaps, unthrifty of her to neg- 
lect the last chance of appetizing food 
which, humanly speaking, she is likely to 
have for months, or perhaps years. It is 
certainly unwise to run the risk of arriv- 
ing hungry at Portland Villa; but the 
lovesick soul loathes the honey-comb even 
more than the full one does. By-and-by 
she goes heavily through the walks, where 
hitherto she has never gone alone. She 
says a separate good-by to each special 
8 


resort — to the wood, to the trellised rose- 
walks, to the garden god. But she is 
half sorry afterward that she has done 
so, for they none of them look the same. 

There has been a heavy rain ; the nar- 
row wood-paths are drowned, and the 
strong brambles lay hold on her with rude 
wet hands — there is now no one to free 
her from them — the trellised roses are 
sodden, limp, and overblown ; sloppy 
tears are racing down the god’s limbs 
and running down his nose. Then she 
packs up her clothes; packing a sigh 
between each gown ; then at length Mrs. 
Wolferstan makes her tardy appearance. 

“ They were as nearly as possible late, 
I hear,” she says, referring to her de- 
parted guests. “Anthony will always 
persist in allowing such a narrow margin, 
and Lalage is an inveterate dawdle ! I 
cannot understand that ; can you ? I 
always say ” (with her little January 
laugh), “ I have only one virtue, but at 
least I have that in perfection. I am 
punctual ; never to my knowledge did I 
keep any one waiting in my life ! ” 

And now Miss Dering^is on her home- 
ward road. The fourteen days are over 
— behind her instead of before. The car- 
riage-horses are drawing her back as 
cheerfully as they brought her. In her 
ears still ring her hostess’s chill-toned, 
farewell words : 

“So glad to have made your acquaint- 
ance. I hope we shall have the pleasure 
of seeing you here again some day.” 

Soma day! That is substantial food 
for a hungry heart, is not it ? Before her 
mind’s eye she still sees the tepid civility 
of Mrs. Wolferstan’s good-by smile. She 
has reached the gate of Portland Villa. 
The ragged string which ties gate and 
gate-post together, to the confusion of the 
Sardanapalus pigs, has twisted itself into 
a knot. The footman fumbles with it for 
ten minutes before he conquers it. But 
at last the carriage rolls in, rolls up to the 
door, and the footman boldly pulls the 
bell. Let him pull. Is it not broken? 

On the seldom-scoured door-step the 


114 


JOAN. 


dogs’ muddy paws have wrought many 
ingenious patterns — only to bo erased, 
probably, by the action of time — and, also, 
on the door-step crowd all the dogs them- 
selves. Carriage-company is not common 
at Portland Villa, and always wildly ex- 
cites them. They will hardly let her get 
out, and, when at last she has succeeded 
in descending among them, each greets 
her in his own fashion. PtOgy — a kind 
and conscientious dog, but not gifted with 
much insight into character — evidently 
mistakes her for his enemy the butcher’s 
boy, who also arrives in a carriage, or at 
least a species of one. This is clear by 
the tone of his bark and the bristled 
roughness of his hostile back. Algy hav- 
ing smelt her carefully all over, so as to 
insure not being led away by a superfi- 
cial resemblance, gives her a temperate 
welcome ; but Mr. Brown knows her in a 
minute. He trusts neither to his nose 
nor to his short-sighted eyes. Ilis heart 
tells him that it is Joan. He is not quite 
so clean as could be wished, as he has 
clearly been indulging lately in the not 
uncommon luxury of a roll in the ash-pit, 
but what his greeting wants in cleanliness 
it makes up in warmth. She stoops 
down and kisses him. lie is certainly 
like Anthony’s dog — a humble, vulgarized 
likeness — but still like. Walking along 
beside her, almost entirely on his hind- 
legs, in a way which would make his for- 
tune were he a professional dog, he es- 
corts her into the drawing-room and 
introduces her to the family, for they are 
all three there ; all with their backs 
turned to her and their noses flattened 
against the shut window, in eager and 
reverent survey of the departing Wolfer- 
stan equipage. 

“If he has not left the gate untied! ” 
cries Mrs. Moberley, in accents of high 
indignation ; “ and now the pigs will be 
in before you can say ‘Knife!’ Just 
like a servant, anything to save himself 
trouble ! ” 

At the sound of Joan’s step they all 
turn and greet her after their several 


manners, and so absorbing is the interest 
that her return occasions, tiiat, though 
two minutes later the pigs, watching their 
opportunity, unlatch the gate and enter, 
numerous as talkative, they remain quite 
unnoticed and undisturbed. 

“You were not asked to stay, I sup- 
pose?” says Bell, with a laugh, as she 
stretches her copious form on the little 
couch, and prepares to take part, at lux- 
urious ease, in high converse about the 
aristocracy. 

Joan opens her blue eyes. 

“ To stay ! how do you mean ? I 
staid a fortnight.” 

“ I mean for good, of course ! ” rejoins 
her cousin, still laughing, and with a play- 
ful emphasis on the tw'O important words. 
“ Anthony did not ask you to stay ? ” 
“Pooh! pooh! ” cries Mrs. Moberley, 
chjdingly ; “ do not put notions into the 
girl’s head ! it did not require spectacles 
to see which way the colonel was look- 
ing. — never made out her name, Joan; 
that stout girl with a fresh color — dear 
me ! she was stout ! — she beat you. Bell ! ” 
“ She looked one of the Upper Ten all 
the same! ” replies Bell; “after all, you 
cannot mistake them ! ” 

“ I cannot say that you look mr 
better for your out ! ” says Mrs. Mooenev, 
reseating upon her nose the spectacles 
which, pushed up on her forehead, have 
been enjoying a season of rest and inac- 
tion, and regarding her niece somewhat 
narrowly through them. “ I dare say all 
those kickshaws did not agree with you ; 
after all, there is nothing like a plain roast 
Joint with the gravy in it ; all the doctors 
tell you so ! ” 

“ How low you must feel ! ” says Bell, 
pensively; “I can sympathize with you; 

I feel as flat as flat myself this morning ! 
that is the worst of that kind of society ; 
it spoils you for all other! ” 

“ Speak for yourself! ” cries Diana, in 
her high, honest voice, while her healthy 
cheeks take a deeper tinge than even 
youth, country air, and a good digestion, 
have given them; “as for me, I never 


JO AX. 


115 . 


spent sucli a wretclied evening in my life ! 
I do not know which I was most ashamed 
of— myself, or you, or mother!— what 
fishes out of water we looked! — now did 
not we, Joan ? ” 

Miss Dering is delivered from the deli- 
cate dilemma in which this question places 
her, by Mrs. Moberley, who makes a 
peaceable diversion by saying : 

“Talking of fishes, I do wish, Joan, 
that you could get us the recipe of that 
sauce they served with the mullet’ last 
night ; I declare I see no reason why Jane 
should not try her hand at it ; of course, 
you know old Mrs. Wolferstan well 
enough by this time not to mind mention- 
ing it to her ; indeed, many people take 
it as a compliment to be asked for their 
recipes! ” 

Joan gives a sort of gasp. Perhaps 
it is the confined atmosphere of the room 
— the Moberleys are not fond of air, and 
the window is closed — which makes her 
do so. It is the last straw which breaks 
the camel’s back, though under many of 
the previous ones it has been cracking ; 
and (although, in reading of it, the cause 
seems absurdly disproportioned to the 
effect), at the request for the fish-sauce 
recipe, she feels as if she must begin sob- 
bing — begin and never stop. 

“ I hope you will not take it unkind 
of us,” pursues Mrs. Moberley, presently, 
placidly flowing away from her subject 
and into a new one, “if we leave you 
all alone the first night of your coming 
home: but, to tell the truth, we have 
been engaged for a week past to go on a 
little jaunt to-night! — well, I suppose it 
is a dance really, though they do not call 
it so — a sort of little friendly frisk got up 
among the young people — no doubt” 
(with a jolly laugh) “ wo shall have plenty 
of fun and quizzing! ” 

“ It is at a place five miles the other 
side of Ilelmsley ! ” explains Diana ; and 
in her eyes also there is a flash of young 
joy and expectant mirth; “everybody 
about here has joined to hire the big 
omnibus from the King’s Head ; it is to 


come here first: then we go round the 
town collecting everybody, we end with 
the Barracks ; six of them have promised 
to come; do you think” (a little doubt- 
fully) “ that it can hold us all? ” 

“The Simpsons have offered mother 
a seat in their fly ! ” cries Bell, in glori- 
ous antistrophe ; “ otherwise she would 
have been obliged to walk ” (laughing) ; 
“ w’e set our faces against having one 
chaperone with us — nothing but officers 
and young ladies ! I am sure I cannot 
think how we shall all fit in ! ” 

Joan gives a great sigh of relief. The 
text-like proverb which nine out of every 
ten people imagine to inhabit the Bible, 
“God tempers the wind to the shorn 
lamb,” recurs vividly to her mind. If in 
a whole long evening of solitude, com- 
mon-sense, reflection, and strict self- 
schooling, she cannot get the better of 
the past, and offer a brave front to the 
future, she must be a poor creature in- 
deed. 

They are gone now. Mrs. Moberley 
has joggled heavily away in the Simpsons’ 
fly, and the girls have,bumped and rat- 
tled smartly off in the as yet empty 
omnibus. Joan has done her duty by 
them all to the last : she has fastened on 
Mrs. Moberley’s cap so straight and firm 
that no ordinary slumber can unseat it; 
she lifts dressed Diana’s crisp hair, and 
discouraged the reappearance in it of the 
bird-of-paradise ; she has wisely left Ara- 
bella wholly alone, and allowed her to 
effloresce, unremonstrated with, into co- 
pious blue beads, pink flowers, and red 
fruit. She has kissed them all — Diana 
twice --and hoped they would enjoy 
themselves^ and sWeetly thanked them 
for their kind wish that she w'ere about 
to accompany them. 

They are gone ; Mrs. Moberley’s last 
indistinct mandate screamed out of the 
fly-window dies, drowned among the roll- 
ing of the wheels and the barking of the 
dogs. All of it that survives to reach 
Joan’s ears is the word “pigs ! ” 


116 


JO AJsr. 


CHAPTER XXY. 

“ Can he prize the tainted posies 
Which on every breast are worn, 

That may pluck the virgin roses 
From their never-touched thorne ? 

I can goe rest 
On her sweet brest ; 

That is the pride of Cynthia’s train. 

Then stay thy tongue, 

Thy mermaid-song 
Is all bestowed on me in vain.” 

Joan is left alone with her trouble — 
a trouble that, by its nature, rebuts sym- 
pathy; and which would be centupled 
were any one — even the dogs— to con- 
jecture its existence. After all, it is not 
always our legitimate sorrows — the sor- 
rows for which our friends condole Avith 
us on black-edged paper, and to assuage 
Avhich they ply us with sal-volatile and 
texts — that sting us the most sharply. 
Joan takes her sorrow out-of-doors, and 
sits down with it on the base of the sun- 
dial. She sits down, nor is it by any 
means clear when she will be able to get 
up again ; as three of the dogs, Avho pre- 
fer her soft gown to either the chill stone 
or the damp grass, and who know too 
well what good manners and sociability 
are to go back to the draAving-room with- 
out her, have pinned her to earth by dis- 
posing their Avarm, plump bodies upon 
her. Her meditations are set to the ftiusic 
of their snores. The soft-shod night comes 
stepping on with her soundless feet: 
the lush long grass, the weedy gravel- 
path, the leggy scarlet geraniums, and 
lean, slatternly rose-bushes, are groAving 
indistinct. ‘ 

The Campidoglio children are enjoy- 
ing one fareAvell riot among their cab- 
bages and clothes-lines before going to 
bed. 

“ Let me look it in the face ! ” she 
says, half under her breath ; “I am cry- 
ing for the moon, and I am sickly and 
dolorous and unstrung, because it does 
not fall into my lap — because it prefers 
to go on shining up above me ” — a mo- 


ment later — “ up above me ! no ! the met- 
aphor does not hold there ; in my feel- 
ing for him there is nothing of looking 
up ; perhaps of us two, I am the more to 
be looked up to; though indeed in nei- 
ther is there much to reAmrence!” A 
longer pause. The angry Campidoglio 
mother has swept away her oftspring ; 
there is no sound but a slight snore now 
and then from Mr. Brown, as his nose 
lies comfortably in the palm of Joan’s 
hand.' Even at Portland Villa there are 
privacy and peace. Forgetting Mr. Brown, 
she has noAV flung her arms round the 
sundial. Her face is pressed close against 
the hard, cold stone. There is do one to 
hear the drip of her hot tears. 

“ Oh my dear ! ” she says in a low and 
sobbing whisper ; I do love you ! it is 
no use now to think Avhether it would 
have been better to leave it alone ; it is 
too late! the thing is done; though I 
pray God to give me strength to hide it 
from you as long as I live. ... I have 
loved you Avithout your bidding me ; it is 
not very wise of me, is it? but after all 
there is nothing to be so much ashamed 
of! my love will do you no harm if it is 
good of its kind ; I think it is good ! — I 
think it is good ! — it may even profit you 
a little ! in all this Avorld, hearty, whole- 
some, clean love never did anything but 
good either to the giver or the taker ; 
after all, it is but a poor huckstering kind 
of love that insists on getting as much as 
it gives; it is not love, if it stickles for 
an equivalent, it is barter ! ” 

After a pause, her head still leaned 
against the stone ; her arms still embrac- 
ing the cold pillar: “ I Avill go on loving 
you, dear — icill! ” (Avith a sad, low laugh) 
“ as if there were any choice in the mat- 
ter — as if I could help it — but I will not 
let you spoil my life : you shall not make 
a peevish sluggard of me : I will sleep, 
I will eat, I Avill laugh, I Avill help other 
people. I Avill be the better, not the 
Avorse, for having loved you ! ” 

She lifts he/ Avet eyes to the sky — (at 
any high or Avorthy thought one natu- 


JOAN. 


•117 


rally looks upward, even if it be only 
to a whitewashed ceiling)— to the sky, 
where now all the silver squadrons of 
the old, old stars are drawn up in their 
nightly array; hut alas! between her 
and their heavenly, mild shining, thrusts 
itself the eager, human beauty of her 
love’s face ; in her ears she still hears his 
voice, naming to her, as it did two nighfs 
ago, one after one, the constellations’ 
lovely names. She looks quickly down 
again, and her gaze, moistened and 
moved, falls on the dusk forms of the 
Sardanapalus pigs moving dimly about 
in the adjoining field, and occasionally 
grunting shortly and comfortably to each 
other, as they snout and rout to and fro, 
hither and thither. She may look at the 
pigs as long as she pleases. There is no 
link that binds them and Wolferstan to- 
gether in her mind. 

The heavy dews of late summer fall 
round her ; they moisten the soft silk of 
her hair, and the fabric of her gown; 
Mr. Brown is shivering in his sleep. A 
bat — voiceless, elfin creature — circles 
fearlessly round her, crediting her with 
no more life than the stone against which 
she leans, when suddenly, in a moment, 
he is disabused, for she has sprung to her 
feet, scattering like dead leaves the three 
solid dogs who had been making a mat- 
tress of her. After all, her ears are sharp- 
er than theirs. 

It is not yet ten o’clock, so the dawn 
cannot yet be coming, nor have the stars 
multiplied their shafts of light, and yet — 
to Joan’s eyes — ^how light it has sudden- 
ly grown ! For has not her sun risen ? 

Wolferstan is beside her ; Wolferstan 
— the departed — the meekly forsworn — 
the prayed against. Even in this dark 
place she can see the happy hashing of 
his young and passionate eyes. 

“You are not gone to Scotland? ” she 
cries, all in a minute ; and, out of her hur- 
rying words and shaken tones, she has 
much ado to keep the sudden joy that is 
sweeping in high tide ovej* her so lately- 
stranded heart. 


“ IIow do you know that? ” he asks, 
with a low laugh of young content ; “ how 
do you know that I am not an optical de- 
lusion ? It is almost too dark to see you ; 
but I hear that you are breathing quickly ! 
Are you frightened? Will you make sure 
that I am real? ” 

As he speaks, he stretches out his 
right hand to her, but she does not take 
it. 

“Why have you come back?” she 
asks, in the same sudden voice, and with 
the same short, quick breath. 

“ I have not come back 1 ” he answers, 
laughing, “ because I never went ; I never 
meant to go ; you told me that I was go- 
ing, and I was too polite to contradict 
you ; I have been in London all day — I 
could not get away before. No, I have 
not gone to Scotland — why should I ? ” 

She laughs nervously, and her eyes 
avoid meeting the dusk, fond shining of 
his. 

“Why do people go to Scotland? — to 
shoot grouse, to catch salmon, to stalk 
deer 1 ” 

lie shrugs his broad shoulders, and 
stretches out his hands with a gesture of 
abnegation. 

“ I renounce them all! ” 

“ And Miss Beauchamp ? ” says Joan, 
her eyes still bent on the dim shapes ot 
the shivering, discomfortable dogs, and 
the almost invisible grass, and speaking 
with pursed lips, and a little stiff tone ; 
“ has she not gone, either? ” 

“ Of course she has gone! ” he cries, 
giving a petulant stamp ; “ why will you 
persist in always bracketing us together ? 
I shall repent of having told you that 
episode of rny infancy, if you will persist 
in so continually and basely throwing it 
in my teeth.” 

“ Have you come to tell me the sequel 
of it ? ” she asks, in a voice which, though 
a little mollified, contains still a good deal 
of starch. 

“ Why do you ask these offensive ques- 
tions? ” he cries, impatiently. “ I wish I 
had a box of cigar-lights that I might 


118 


J 0 A X. 


strike a Vesuvian, and see wliether your 
face tallies with your cold, east-windy 
voice. It is evident that you are dis- 
pleased with me — and why ? — is it he- 
because of — last night ?— because of — be- 
cause of the — the — conservatory? ” 

As he speaks, shying a little, perhaps, 
at the last words, he takes her hand. lie 
has some little difficulty in finding it, as 
it is hanging down by her side, and there 
is small light to help him ; but perhaps 
she covertly aids him, for before long it 
is lying small, cool, and entirely passive, 
in his. 

“Let us hear the worst! ” he says, 
half laughing, yet earnestly. “No — I 
will not let it go ” — (as she makes a puny 
effort to withdraw her fingers) — “ I have 
done nothing to deserve having it taken 
away from me ; if I had I would give it 
back to you in a moment! — but come, let 
us hear — what do you suppose hap- 
pened ? — what do you think we said or 
did — when we got there ? ” 

“I have never hazarded a conject- 
ure ! ” she answers, lifting her small, 
white chin into the air, and speaking* in a 
tone of equal frostiness and falsity. 

“Do you think — do you think,” he 
says, stammering, and, dark as it is, she 
knows that he is reddening — “ do you 
think” (in a sneaky and uncertain voice) 
“ that I hissed her ? ” 

“I think it is extremely probable ! ” 
(in a tone that, but for the tremble in it, 
would be the ne plus ultra of virginal 
dignity and ice). She fears that her fin- 
gers are trembling too, and that he can 
feel them. 

“ How about the charity that thinketh 
no evil? ” cries the young man, joyously. 
“Well, then! — you are wrong! — I did 
nothing of the kind ! ” 

“You did not? ” (the frost disappear- 
ing in an instantaneous thaw, melted by 
the sunshine of an un governed relief and 
Joy). 

“I did not! — to you” (in a slower, 
and less triumphant key) — “to you, Avho 
are my conscience, to whom I have al- 


ways persistently turned my worst side 
outward — I will not deny — if it were not 
dark, I do not think that I should be 
brave enough to confess this — that it was 
a temptation ; I suppose there never yet 
was a storm that did not leave some sort 
of a swell behind it, however entirely the 
storm itself may be past — well ” (speak- 
ing quicker and more easily), “I am 
afraid that I can count on my fingers the 
temptations that I have resisted in the 
course of my life ; but I did resist this 
one !-^as I live I did ! ” 

She has snatched away her hand from 
him, successfully this time, and, still stand- 
ing, throws her arms round her old friend 
tlie dial. Perhaps she is thankful for its 
cold support. 

“Even if I had,” continues the young 
fellow, eagerly, in some repentance for 
and some fear at the results of his own 
candor — “ even if I had it would not have 
hurt — it would not have touched my utter 
loyalty to you ! — you do not comprehend ? 
ah ! we are made of a coarser pate than 
you ! the sort of feeling that I have for her, 
you would not take at a gift — you would 
toss it away disdainfully were I to offer it 
to you ! There is no doubt ” (in a tone 
of irritated reflection) “that some women 
have the happy knack of stirring up and 
bringing to the surface the dregs of one’s 
being; now, with you, I forget that I 
have any dregs ! ” 

No answer. Eegy and Algy have 
seated themselves very close together on 
the foot of the sundial, propped against 
each other in dismal community of endur- 
ance and looking ostentatiously misera- 
ble. 

“When I came back,” continues Wol- 
ferstan, repenting still more heartily of 
his honesty, “ it wms in ten minutes — be- 
lieve me it wms in ten minutes — you were 
gone ! I went out on the terrace, I ran to 
all our resorts— to our trellised rose-walk 
— to our beech-tree seat — to our yew- 
hedge — you w^ere nowhere ; I called you 
softly by your dear little quaint name — 
did you ever hear such impertinence ? — 


JOAN. 


119 


but there came no answer; and at last, 
some one told me that you had gone to 
bed! Why did you go to bed? what 
business had you to go? who gave you 
leave?” 

Still she is silent. The small night 
wind blows her heavy gown softly against 
him, but carries no message to him from 
her dumb mouth. 

“Are you still out of humor with 
me?” he asks, rather crestfallen; then, 
after a moment, in a tone of doubtful ex- 
ultation: “Is it possible, Joan — is it pos- 
sible that you are — Jealous of me? It 
seems too good news to be true; but 
indeed — indeed it looks like it. As for 
me, do you know that I am Jealous of the 
very dews that have leave to drench your 
gown ? of the very dial round which your 
arms are thrown ; why are they — why 
are they not round me instead ? at least, 
I should not be so cold and unresponsive.” 
He steps nearer to her, with his arms pas- 
sionately outstretched, but she slips from 
him as if she were a mist-maidpn, made 
out of moonbeams and evening vapor. 
“ Are you angry? ” he cries, vehemently ; 
“ indeed you have no need to be! I ask 
you to put your dear arms round me for 
always — for all my life, be it short or 
long! Oh, more than ever now I hope it 
may be long ! ” 

She does not answer, but it is not 
wrath that keeps her dumb, nor does he 
any longer think so, for through the gloom 
her fair wet eyes have met the dark fond 
burning of his. 

“I had to come to-night,” he says, in 
an eager half whisper; “I could not put 
it olf till to-morrow. I thought, ‘ I may 
die in the night.’ Even if they had all 
been here — they are all out, are not they, 
God bless them ! — but even if they had all 
been sitting round, I think I should have 
had to ask you all the same.” 

She laughs a little — a laugh that is 
half a sob. 

“ I meant to have asked you last night, 
only you went to bed,” indignantly. “The 
more I reflect upon it the more unjustifi- 


able I think it of you. By going to bed 
you robbed us of a whole long day — a 
whole twenty-four hours! How dared 
you? ” 

He has taken her two arms and laced 
them about his neck ; with his own he is 
straitly prisoning her supple, sweet body. 
She is not struggling at all; why should 
one struggle to escape from absolute well- 
being ? After a moment : 

“ Have you reflected,” she says, sob- 
bingly, “that you will have to sit oppo- 
site to mo at breakfast for perhaps fifty 
years? ” 

“I will do nothing of the kind,” he 
answers, stoutly; “opposite to you with 
a long table, an urn, and half a dozen 
other impediments between us ! No, no, 
I have had enough of sitting opposite to 
you! I will never sit opposite to you 
again. Oh, my one love ! my sweetheart, 
my tall white lily-bud, how soon are you 
going to give me a kiss ? ” 

At his speech she slowly raises her 
silk head, which has been drooping lily- 
wise on his breast, and, lifting her pas- 
sionate pure mouth to his, their lips make 
sweet acquaintance in an interminable 
first kiss. Does any after-kiss, I wonder, 
ever equal, in point of mere duration, the 
enormous longevity of a first one? Only 
the stars and the dogs see it — the stars, 
both the great and the small ones ; both 
those that shine in luminous solitude, and 
those that are gathered in lustrous families. 
As for the dogs, they look away yawning 
and humping up their chilly backs. To 
Joan it is an absolutely new sensation; 
to Wolferstan — well — not wholly novel. 
But this goes without saying; a man 
brings his scanty dregs, and a woman her 
ripe first-fruits, and all the world (the 
woman herself included) look upon it as 
a fair and equitable exchange. In an in- 
nocent tumult of great and astonished 
bliss, Joan gives herself to her love’s new 
caresses. Ho is the first to break the 
lovely silence. 

“ What is it that gives this sharpest 
edge of keen pain-pleasure ? ” he cries, 


120 


JOAN. 


looking passionately up at the impas- 
sioned sky. “O love! do you know 
that I can fancy no ecstasy in the con- 
ventional idea of heaven ? the dead-sweet 
certainty of everlasting fruition would 
nauseate my palate ; it is the uncertainty 
— the thought that you may die — that I 
may die — that to-morrow — to-morrow it 
may be ended and gone, that makes this 
agony of rapture.” 

As he speaks he gathers yet more 
strainingly and closely her trembling 
body to his young and leaping heart, but 
at his words she shudders, and draws her- 
self away. 

“You are wrong! you are wrong!” 
she cries, vehemently ; “ in love there is 
no uncertainty. All those who have ever 
really loved, whether they died to-day or 
three thousand years ago, love still. Oh, 
my dear ? what good or pleasure could 
there be in it if we believed that it could 
pass? In this weak and shifting world 
it is the one all-sure, all-strong, all-lovely 
thing! Kill me, sooner than convince 
me of its mortality! ” 

As she so brokenly speaks, she lifts 
her streaming eyes to the stars that are 
not clearer or more holy than they. And 
those words and that look her lover car- 
ries away with him in his heart, when, 
five minutes later, she sweetly but reso- 
lutely sends him away. I think that they 
will be buried with him when he dies. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

The French call a wakeful night a 
’blanche.'''' Surely this is a mis- 
nomer. To most people, a night on which 
they do not sleep is a black, not a white 
one. But for once, in Joan’s case, the 
epithet is meet and fitting. The night 
that follows her troth-plight is one of the 
whitest of her life. And yet she sleeps 
not at all. Why should she ? Sleep is a 
good and goodly thing, better than any 
jog-trot happiness, or usual every-day 


content, but it is not better than a great, 
keen, and poignant felicity. Why should 
she, then, exchange the better for the 
worse? Broad awake she lies ; not toss- 
ing about, not feverish or troubled ; 
quite still and restful, with her two white 
hands clasped beneath her head, and her 
wide blue eyes looking her new treasure 
full and steadily in the face. She is un- 
conscious even of the flinty pillow and 
the potato-stuffed mattress. She hears 
every one of the slowly-told hours as 
they are spoken out to the night by the 
hospital-clock. She hears her aunt and 
cousins return ; hears them trail wearily 
up-stairs ; hears Bell say something loud 
about “Jackson;” and Diana, mindful 
of her supposed slumbers, cry “Hush ! ” 
Mrs. Moberley, indeed, goes so far as 
creakily to open her (Joan’s) bedroom- 
door, and look in, shading the candle- 
flame with four fat fingers ; but, in a mo- 
ment, Joan has shut her eyes, and feigned 
the sleep that is so far from her brain. 

“ Fast as a church ! sound as a top ! ” 
says her aunt, in a large whisper ; and so 
closes the noisy door again and retires. 

By-and-by, the morning draws on. 

She is in no hurry for it. She is content 
to lie and watch it slowly supplanting its 
ebon-haired sister ; to see the dawn-wind 
sucking in, and then blowing outward 
again, the scant curtain at the oi)en win- 
dow ; to see the eastern gates painting 
themselves with pearl against the coming 
of the great flame-horses that will 

“Shake the darkness from their loosened 
manes. 

And heat the twilight into flakes of fire.” 

They have come now : they are 
stretching in mighty gallop through the 
sky : the sun has risen, and Joan must 
rise too ; for have not she and her love 
given each other early tryst by the wash- 
ing of the morning waves ? She dresses 
and warily goes down the dark stairs; 
warily, for, in all human probability, a > 
coal-box or pail of water at the stair-foot 
awaits all those whose steps are not 


JO AX. 


121 


guided by a crafty and distrustful caution. 
The house is dark and shut up and close. 
She gropes her way to the dining-room 
shutters and opens them. After all, it 
would have been kinder perhaps to have 
left them shut. An overset chair, empty 
soda-water bottles, crumbs, sandwich- 
wrecks, mark where the family have 
sparsely reveled overnight. It is the 
same scene of squalor as that to which 
she had descended on the first morning 
of her arrival ; but with how difierent an 
eye does she now regard it ! In her 
glance there is no heart-sickness, no in- 
ward shrinking from the prospect of a 
limitless future of dirt. From all these 
evils she is about to be delivered ; and 
this deliverance — great and joy -bringing 
as it would be were it taken singly — is 
only one small incident in her large fe- 
licity. 

Through the reaped harvest-fields her 
swift feet carry her, hardly feeling the 
weight of her light body ; the fields 
where now, of all the sappy green blades 
that greeted her eyes on that first April 
morning of her coming, nothing now re- 
mains but pale, harsh stubble. The dogs 
pursue each other in foolish scampering 
circles over the plain where, so lately, 
the crowded ears waved and rustled as 
high as a man’s hea’d. As she nears the 
sea, she quickens her pace ; for, early as 
she is — and no mock modesty, or thought 
of enhancing her own value by delay, 
has made her late — yet he is before her. 
There he stands among the sandy dunes, 
looking toward the east and her. As she 
comes stepping toward him, over the 
faint sea-hollies, and the bitter wan sea- 
grass, she seems to him a transfigured 
Joan. Surely her cheeks have borrowed 
some of the fine dawn-red that lined the 
sun’s cradle ; surely her eyes have stolen 
some of the heavenly shining. So, in the 
eye of the morning they meet, and give 
each other a sweet good-morrow. 

“Are you sure,” says Joan by-and- 
by, gently yet deftly eluding her lover’s 
blandishments, and soberly taking his 


hand instead — “are you sure that you 
are in the same mind still ? are you sure 
that it was not — was not — accidental last 
night ? that there is no — no — mistake ? ” 

He laughs — a low laugh, less of mirth 
than of utter heart-content. “There is 
a mistake!” he says, cheerfully, “or at 
least there was one — I have been repent- 
ing of it ever since last night. Do you 
know what it is? — That I did not ask 
you to marry me the first time — the first 
moment — I ever saw you. What a great 
deal of time we have wasted in prelimi- 
naries ! ” (regretfully) ; “ but,” in a lighter 
tone), “ never mind, there is plenty still 
before us ; in all human likelihood there 
are yet many good years ahead of us. 
More, far more, than we have yet passed.” 

She shakes her head a little sadly. 
“ In life and in death there is no likely 
or unlikely : the likely go ; the unlikely 
stay.” 

They have sat down on almost the 
same spot where, five months or more 
ago, he had found her sitting alone, with 
clasped knees and far-traveling eyes. 
Over the sea there is spread a wide and 
luminous mist — gold-shot, like a king’s 
vesture ; and above it, trampling it with 
his fire-feet, chariots the great sun, mak- 
ing all earth and heaven one laugh. 

“ But seriously,” says Joan, putting 
her arms round Mr. Brown, and arrang- 
ing him quietly between herself and her 
lover, as a slight barrier against the lat- 
ter’s insatiate endearments, “but serious- 
ly, indeed I am not asking for the sake of 
being contradicted. I never was more 
deeply in earnest in my life. Have you 
well and ripely considered the many and 
great drawbacks that there undoubtedly 
are to me?” 

“What drawbacks?” he says, ab- 
ruptly, coloring and throwing out at her 
a side-glance of embarrassment and fear. 

She laughs softly. “You need not 
look so tragic ; I know of no new ones, 
only the old ones — with which you are 
quite as well acquainted as I am I ” 

“ Is that all ? ” he says, while his 


122 


• / • 

JOAN. 


chest rises and then sinks again, in a great 
sigh of relief. “ lYell, let us hear them! 
AVhich be they? ” 

“ Have you reflected,” says Joan, 
slowly, and flushing a little, while with 
her bare palm she scoops up a few grains 
of loose sea-sand, “that you will be Mrs. 
Moberley’s nephew ? ” 

He nods. “Yes — Mrs. Moberley’s 
nephew. lias she any more? or am I 
the only oile ? ” 

“That you will be Bell’s first-cous- 
in ? ” still more slowly, and bending face 
and eyes as if to count the sand-grains 
in her hand. “Not second^ mind — one 
may slur over second-cousins — hvitfirst f ” 

Again he nods. “Yes — Bell’s first- 
cousin — go on ! ” 

“That they will call you Anthony? 
At least I do not know about Diana, but 
I think that my aunt, and I am sure that 
Bell, will.” 

If, at this suggestion, "Wolf erstan’s 
spirit undergoes any inward convulsion 
it is known only to himself and his con- 
science. Narrowly as Joan is now watch- 
ing him, she can detect no sign of winc- 
ing. “ I shall be hurt if they do not ! ” 
he answers, doughtily. “ If it would give 
them any satisfaction to abbreviate me 
to ‘ Tony,’ I am sure that they are more 
than welcome.” 

“That you will have to be ‘hail fel- 
low well met’ with Micky — why do I 
call him Micky ? ” (impatiently correcting 
herself) ; “ it is a bad habit I have fallen 
into — with Mr. Brand and Mr. Jackson — ” 

“And Mr. Brown! ” interrupts Wol- 
ferstan, joyously, pulling that gentleman’s 
left ear. — “Do you hear, Mr. Brown? 
you and I are to be ‘ hail fellow well met ’ 
— so give us a paw.” 

Mr. Brown complies, and, not being a 
dog to do things by halves, he rapidly 
V gives first one paw then the other, and 
finally jumps wholly up on "Wolferstan’s 
knee, where he sits with difficulty pois- 
ing himself, but trying to look comfort- 
able and smirking on that uneasy emi- 
nence. 


She shakes her ..hoad with a little 
hopeless gesture. 

“I see that you will not be gravel ” 

“Why should I be?” cries Wolfer- 
stan, bubbling over again w'ith unavoid- 
able young laughter. “No one could 
make so bad a joke to-day, that I should 
not laugh at it, but indeed I am grave 
sometimes. Last night — by-the-by, did 
you sleep last night? I think I shall be 
rather hurt if you tell me that you did — 
I did not close my eyes. I heard all the 
clocks — I really believe we have twenty 
that strike, besides several loud tickers 
that do not strike — wmll, I heard them 
beat out every quarter of an hour of the 
tardy night. I could not sleep for plans 
that jostled each other in my head — ten 
lives will not be long enough for all the 
work that I mean to crowd into mine — 
into ours I mean ! ” with a happy, quick 
changing of the lonely for the companion- 
able pronoun. 

She does not interrupt or answer him 
with W'ords, but the eager shining of her 
eyes tells with how keen a sympathy she 
follows him. 

“ Do you know',” he says, quite grave- 
ly now, though to-day his gravity is al- 
most as joyous as his laughter — “ do you 
know that I have slouched and dawdled 
through twenty -seven years of my life? 
is not that enough in all conscience? — 
— for myself I have never had any am- 
bition ; always I have needed some one 
either to goad or to coax me into real 
work ; hitherto there has been no one — 
no one to do either! — they say, nowa- 
days, that there is no such person as the 
devil, do not they ? — w'ell, all I know is, 
that I have a special own devil of sloth 
and sluggardliness ! — beloved, you will 
help me to fight him, will not you ? ” 

“That I will, God willing! ” she says, 
low' but steadfastly, wiiile her fingers 
straitly yet modestly press the nervous 
hand that, clasping hers, rests on Mr. 
Brown’s warm back; behaving jumped* 
down from Wolferstan’s knee, and re-* 
sumed his position between the lovers as 


JOAN. 


123 


soon as he thought he could do so with- 
out hurting the young man’s feelings. 

“ Among all the women I have ever 
loved,” says Wolferstan, lifting his con- 
fident, hold eyes to the kind, suave sky 
above him — “and” (laughing), “indeed 
their name is Legion — there has never 
been one that inspired me with a wish to 
rise ! — always I have felt quite comfort- 
able and high enough, while you, beloved 
— already — already you begin to beckon 
me up to your own level ! ” 

“To my own level?” she cries, in 
eager, quick disclaimer, while her eyes go 
to meet his through a lovely mist ; “ nay, 
love, higher — higher! ” 

For a few moments both are silent. 
The tide is ebbing fast. The wave that 
frothed at their feet ten minutes ago, now 
sucks the glorious wet sand a hundred 
yards off, and lends ever-new lengths of 
shining sea-fibbon to the beach, to be 
fetched back again when the next tide 
flows. Up and down, up and down on 
the small bright billows, the fearless sea- 
mews ride. 

“We will live to a great age!” says 
Wolferstan, presently, quite seriously ; “ I 
believe that nine out of every ten peo- 
ple die because they have not a reso- 
lute enough grip upon life — because they 
are not determined to live! — there is no 
reason, is there, why, this day fifty years, 
we should not again be sitting here still 
hand-in-hand — still looking out young- 
hearted on the everlasting laughter of the 
morning sea? ” 

Early as it is when they met, it is 
nearly one o’clock before they part ; be- 
fore, wfith a hundred leave-takings and as 
many moans, Wolferstan grudgingly lets 
go, for half a dozen hours, the woman 
whom he has done without for seven-and- 
twenty contented years. On very slight 
encouragement he would come to lunch- 
eon ; but he does not receive that slight 
encouragement. On -the contrary, he is 
strongly discouraged when he not ob- 
scurely hints his willingness to share the i 


Moberley fare. Perhaps what gives firm- 
ness and constancy to Joan’s denial is the 
fact that she is aware of what the lunch- 
eon is to consist; viz., of a resurrection- 
pie, in which all the atrocities of the past 
week hold dreadful rendezvous in one 
abominable pasty. 

On entering the drawing-room she 
finds the Moberley triad all gathered in 
the window; all standing, and all with 
heads close together, bent over some ob- 
ject of interest held in the hands of one 
of them. At her entry they all turn with 
exclamations of relief and pleasure tow- 
ard her. 

“What a provoking girl you are ! ” 
cries Bell, sharply ; “you always manage 
to be out of the way when anything in- 
teresting happens ! Here is another note 
come for you from the Abbey! What 
can it mean ? Surely ” (in accents of al- 
most indignation), “they cannot be want- 
ing you back there already! — it cannot 
be another invitation ! ” 

“ An invitation ! tut ! ” cries Mrs. Mo- 
berley ; “ more likely it is to tell her that 
she has left a pocket-handkerchief or a 
pair of stockings behind her ! — girls are 
always so heedless about their linen ! ” 

“ That groom will know his way here 
soon ! ” says Bell, with a proud smile ; 
“the traffic between the' two houses is 
certainly becoming brisk ! ” 

During the foregoing observations 
Joan has torn open the well-fingered and 
stretched envelope presented to her, and 
hastily mastered its contents. 

“It is not an invitation !” she says, 
answering the six intent eyes that are 
focusing her; and, if they had leisure to 
notice her complexion, they might mark 
how utterly that small piece of note-paper 
has abolished from her cheeks the dainty 
red that love, sea-air, and exercise, had 
printed there ; “ on the contrary, it is to 
say that Mrs. Wolferstan is coming here 
to-day — she will be here about three ! ” 

• “ Mrs. W olferstan ? ” 

“ Coming here ? ” 

“To-day?” cry the three voices, in 


124 


JOxiN. 


each of which awe, astonishment, and 
rapture, are mixed in differing propor- 
tions. 

In Mrs. Moberley’s, the awe predom- 
inates; in Diana’s, the astonishment; in 
Arabella’s, the rapture. 

“Who was right now?” she cries, 
triumphantly ; “ did not I tell you that 
tve had made a favorable impression the 
other night ? though you wmuld have it 
that they were laughing at us. — I always 
knew that it was only the ice that wanted 
breaking ; Avho knows most of the world 
now, pray?” 

“ What a pity that the bell is broke ! ” 
says Mrs. Moberley, with meditative re- 
gret; “however, Sarah must be on the 
lookout, and run before he has time to 
ring.” 

“ I wish that she had chosen any other 
day to have a face-ache ! ” says Diana, 
fretfully ; “ she looks so dreadful with her 
head tied up ! ” 

“ I am afraid,” says Joan, slowly, look- 
ing deprecatir^gly from one to the other 
of her three auditors, “ that this is not 
exactly an ordinary visit ; very likely — 
no doubt, indeed, she will call upon you 
some other day — by-and-by ; but I think 
— I am afraid — that to-day she wishes to 
see me in private on some — matter of 
business! ” 

“Do you mean,” cries Bell, loudly 
(anger deepening still more the already 
deep tone of her face), “ that she expects 
us to turn out of our own drawing-room 
for her — if she had wished to have any 
private conversation with you, why could 
not she send for you up to the Abbey ? 
And, after all, what can she have to say 
to you that she does not wish your own 
nearest relations to hear? ” 

“ I am sure that 1 do not want to hear 
her secrets ! ” says Mrs. Moberley, pla- 
cidly, though with a slight accent of dis- 
appointment ; “ I always hate mysteries ! 
— from a girl, I always was a terrible 
blab; I never could keep anything to 
myself ; now, your poor aunt — your poor 
mother, I mean, J oan, was quite different 


— she wms as close as the grave ; I defy 
anybody to get anything out of her that 
she did not want them to know ! ” 

Ten minutes later, Joan, escaped from 
her family’s conjectures and lamentations, 
is sitting in her own little bare room. 
On her knee is outspread her future 
mother-in-law’s missive, which, for the 
tenth time, she is rereading ; although at 
the first she had mastered not only the 
gist, but every little w’ord of it. And, 
indeed, there is not much to master. 

“Dear Miss Dering: 

“ If I hear nothing to the contrary, I 
shall be with you this afternoon at three 
o’clock, as I wish to speak to you on a 
subject of the most vital importance. 

“ Yours, truly, 

“Sophia "Wopeerstan.” 

'What that subject of most vital im- 
portance is, Joan has no difficulty in con- 
jecturing. And since, in less than two 
hours, a battle is to be fought, she is al- 
ready arming herself with spear, shield, 
and buckler, for it. In order to harden 
herself against, and take the sting out of, 
the many depreciating remarks that she 
is aware will, during the next three hours, 
be addressed to her, she is saying them 
all over, in order, to herself. 

“I am poor I ” she says, her eyes pen- 
sively fixed on the bald old drugget, 
whose original tints conjecture alone can 
now restore — “very poor! — I have no 
money — at least, I have a thousand 
pounds, which, in their eyes, is the same 
as having none ; I have extremely unde- 
sirable connections — relations rather : I 
have sunk to a grade of society far be- 
low their or ray own natural level. To 
all these accusations I must say, unfeign- 
edly, ‘ Amen ! ’ ” 

She sighs heavily, and her eyes raise 
themselves from the drugget to the wash- 
hafid stand, and fasten upon the mutilated 
ewer, which is now, so to speak, reduced 
to being only a torso ; its handle having 
lately gone to join his long-lost brother, 
the spout, on the ash-heap. She smiles 
sardonically. “ Certainly, it is a singular 


JO A]^. 


125 


house in which to come to look for a 
wife! ” Bj-and-by, in self defense, she 
begins diffidently to reckon up her coun- 
terbalancing advantages. “ I am well- 
born and well-bred,” she says, half aloud ; 
“ I have an old and stainless name — older, 
more stainless, than their own : there are 
absolutely no dark stories about any of 
us ; we have always held our heads up, 
and looked the world straight in the face. 
As for me, I thank God that there is no 
man on this earth that can say the least 
light word of me ; I thank God, too, that 
I am healthy and strong ; I bring no taint 
of disease or shame into any family I en- 
ter! ” 

As she so speaks, her dejected head 
lifts itself, her bent figure grows straight ; 
there come a greater dignity and confi- 
dence into her whole bearing. 

“Let her say her worst! ’’she says, 
with low energy ; “ she shall not part us 
two! ” 

Strong in this resolution, she goes 
down to luncheon ; and every mouthful 
of resurrection-pie confirms her in the 
resolve not lightly to forego a lover in 
whose power it is to deliver her forev.er 
from so noisome a 'plat. 


CHAPTER XXYII. 

The hospital-clock has reached only 
the second stroke of three, when the 
Wolferstan carriage draws up at the door 
of Portland Villa. Such unexampled 
punctuality utterly routs and consternates 
•this simple household. Sarah, who, to 
do her justice, had meant to lay aside 
her face-cloth, and appear in the modi- 
fied dirt of her Sunday-cap, has no lei- 
sure to put her good intentions into 
practice ; nor is she indeed in time to_ 
hinder the footman from tugging several 
times with wasted vigor at the broken 
bell-pull. 

There is a sound of scuffling and hus- 
tling, as the Moberley family transplants 


itself hastily and repiningly from the 
drawing-room to the dining-room. Only 
Joan is ready. She has dusted the orna- 
ments — so called — and the paralytic 
chairs (but this, indeed, she does every 
day), and has set about what flowers she 
could find in the ragged garden, to do 
honor to Anthony’s mother. But when 
all her ameliorations are completed the 
apartment still appears to her to exhibit 
the ne plus ultra of lacquered dirt and 
gilt squalor. 

The last Moberley skirt is scarcely 
out of sight when Sarah announces in a 
garbled and Malaprop manner, “Mrs. 
Wolferstan,” and the next instant Joan 
and her mother-in-law-to-be stand face 
to face. 

“ Punctual to the moment, you see ! ” 
says the latter, beginning to talk at once 
and quickly ; “ did not I tell you that 
punctuality was my one virtue? Never 
in all my life have I missed an appoint- 
ment, or been late for a train ; it is well 
to have even a small virtue in perfection ; 
is not it? ” 

“Is it a small virtue?” says Joan, 
politely. Through the affected gayety of 
her guest’s manner she detects with sur- 
prise the nervousness of her voice, and 
of as much of her face as the white-gauze 
veil, tightly swathed across it, leaves 
visible. (“ She must be going to say 
something extremely disagreeable,” is the 
girl’s reflection ; “ it frightens even her- 
self ; well, it cannot be worse than what 
I have already said to myself! ”) “ I am 

so sorry that there is no blind,” she says, 
civilly, glacing toward the shadeless case- 
ment ; “ and I am afraid that the cur- 
tains do not draw very well either. If I 
had known that you were coming, I 
would have tried to rig up something.” 

But Mrs. Wolferstan does not heed 
her remark. 

“It is always a mistake beating about 
the bush, is not it ? ” she says, laughing 
nervously, and blinking in the potent 
sunlight which is rolling the afternoon 
might of his fire-streams in upon l^he 


126 


J OAK. 


counterfeit gold of her hair, and the real 
lace on her dress; “always better to go 
to the point at once — straiglit to the 
point; — I always go straight to the 
point ; do not you ? — and 1 have always 
credited you with such sound sense — give 
me good serviceable -work-a-day sense, 
that is what I always say ; and while you 
were with us you and I found out so 
many points of sympathy and agreement 
did not we? that I have no doubt — none 
at all — that — that — when I explain my- 
self, we shall be found to agree perfectly 
here, too.” 

“Perhaps, when I know what it is 
that we are to agree upon, I shall be bet- 
ter able to judge,” answers Joan, with a 
grave smile. 

She has sat down on a chair near, but 
not too near, to her companion ; for Mrs. 
AYolferstan is not fond of being closely 
looked into, and it is always the truest 
kindness to her to seat one’s self at about 
a bow-shot’s distance from her. 

“No doubt it is only a piece of silly 
servants’-hall tittle-tattle,” continues the 
other, her uneasiness plainly waxing as 
she nears the pith of her subject ; “we all 
know how things grow in the carrying — 
the proverbial three crows — ha! ha! — 
but I said, I will go to the fountain-head 
— it is always safest to go to the fountain- 
head ; do not you agree with me ? ” 

“Perfectly.” 

“ I am quite inclined to laugh at my- 
self already ! ” (still with the same facti- 
tious falsetto mirth) “you will laugh at 
me too — I give you leave — we will have 
a good laugh together ; but the truth is 
— 1 am always an advocate for truth — 
truth, truth, at any price, I always say ; 
well, the truth is, I came to speak to you 
about — about — Anthony ! ” 

“ You are too late ! ” says Joan, rising 
and stretching out her hands before her, 
as one that warns off another, and speak- 
ing in a resolute, clear voice — “you have 
come too late — a day too late! Yester- 
day — ^last evening, Anthony asked me to 
marry him ! ” 


“And you said ‘yes? ’ ” cries the other, 
rising too, forgetting for the moment her 
mincing airs and girl-gait, and speaking 
in a voice so shrill, genuine, and resonant, 
that, did not the evidence of Joan’s senses 
tell her that it proceeded from Mrs. AVol- 
ferstan’s mouth, she would have disbe- 
lieved in the possibility of its being hers. 
“ you said ‘ yes ? ’ ” 

“I said ‘yes.’ Is there any reason 
why I should not say ‘ yes ’ ? ” 

They stand facing each other ; Joan 
tall and pale, and resolute ; her two hands 
straitly clasped together, and her courage 
gathered up ; for is not this the brunt of 
the battle ? 

“AYhat! ” cries the elder woman, her 
voice rising to the neighborhood of a 
scream, and for an instant forgetting even 
her complexion as she pushes up her veil, 
as if to get air at any price, even at the 
price of exposing her face — painted, 
gummed, and stuck together as it is — to 
the gaze of the pitiless western sun, and 
of Joan’s steady eyes — “ what ! — you can 
stand there and look me, his mother, in 
the face and ask, ‘ is there any reason why 
I should not marry your son! ’ — you too, 
whom I credited with such sound sense ! ” 
— (whimpering off into fatuity again). 

“ Are you going to tell me that a mar- 
riage with me must be a disadvantageous 
one for any man, much more for one 
who, like your son, miglit ask and get so 
much?” says Joan, speaking in a low 
voice, but quite calmly and gently. “ I 
know it! I quite agree with you! — Are 
you going to tell me that I am poor — 
almost destitute — that I have very unde- 
sirable relations — that I have sunk to a 
grade in society far below your or my 
own natural level ? It is all quite true ! I 
quite agree with you; but — ” (her voice 
rising a little, and a happy moisture tem- 
pering the fire of her brave blue eyes) 
— “ but he knows it all too, and he has 
overlooked it! ” 

“I protest that I am quite unable to 
follow you! ” says Mi^. AYolferstan, cold- 
ly. Slie has sat down again as if exhaust- 


J 0 


12 ? 


ed — sat down with a sudden confidence, 
which shows her to be no Jidbitiie of the 
Moberley chairs; has pulled down her 
veil again, and resumed her chilly every- 
day voice; “I never was so mistaken in 
any one in my life — I, who generally am 
supposed to have a good deal of insight 
into character ! — you affect to be alluding 
to the drawbacks that there are to a 
union with you, and you pass o^er in to- 
tal silence the one insuperable objection ; 
in comparison with which all the others 
are trifles light as air — as air! ” (fretfally 
waving about a large black fan). 

“What do you mean?” asks Joan, 
slowly, her blue eyes widening in a pain- 
ful wonder ; “ as God lives, I have told 
you all the drawbacks to myself that I 
know of ; certainly they are many and 
great enough ; I blame no mother for 
giving me a cold welcome, but you hint 
at something else — something worse! — 
what else can there be? known to you, 
unknown to me ? ” 

“ How ! ” cries the other, in accents 
of unfeigned amazement and dismay; 
“ are you serious ? but indeed there is no 
appearance of insincerity about you ; is 
it possible that you do not know the — 
really it is difficult to know how to word 
it — the deplorable — the lamentable cir- 
cumstances ? ” 

“I know nothing!” answers Joan, 
hea* composure breaking a little, and speak- 
ing in quick and shaken tones ; “ I am in 
the dark ! I see—” (lifting up her hands, 
as if to v/ard off a blow about to fall) — 
“I see that something dreadful is com- 
ing; if you have any mercy — if you have 
any humanity — let it come quickly ! ” 

“ Is it possible ? ” says the other, in a 
soared voice ; “ who could have imagined 
such a thing ? is it possible that you are 
ignorant — that you have not heard — that 
no one has ever told you about — about — 
your father ? ” 

“ My father ! I know absolutely noth- 
ing of him ! I have vaguely heard that 
he was rather wild, and that he died 
when I was ten months old ; is tliere 


anything to hear ? anything bad ? ” (her 
voice sinking to a suffocated whisper). 

All the blood has, in a moment, drained 
itself away from her sweet cheeks ; even 
from the lips, but now so ripely, dewily 
red ; all the color that is left in her cen- 
tres in her eyes, that — wide, and blue, 
and dimly frightened — stare out from her 
small white face. 

“This is too shocking!” cries Mrs. 
Wolferstan, rising hastily, and making 
for the door ; “ you must excuse me, I 
will leave you ! I must go home ! I will 
write ; you may depend upon me ; as 
soon as I reach home I will write ! ” 

“ You will not write ! ” says Joan, 
rapidly crossing the room ; standing with 
her back against the door, and speaking 
in low, stern tones, steadied by an enor- » 
mous effort — “ you will tell me — tell me 
now — before you leave this room ! ” 

“ It is absolutely impossible ! ” says 
Mrs. "Wolf erstan, whimpering, and feel- 
ing with futile fingers for the useless door- 
handle. “ I never was able to break any- 
thing to anybody in my life ! I never had 
the nerve for it ; I refer you to your 
aunt ; she knows the whole affair : she 
will tell you.” 

“ You, will tell me ! ” repeats Joan, 
still in the same resolute, low voice, as 
she stands — inexorable guardian — with 
her straight young back against the door- 
panel. Ho long-buried god or marble 
nymph was ever so pale as she ; nor did 
ever blue eyes look out in frozen terror 
from a more ashy face. “ You will tell 
me ; you have begun, and you n;ust end ; 
if I can bear to hear, you can bear to 
speak ! ” 

“ I never was placed in such a position 
in my life ! ” says the elder woman, trem- 
bling all over, and aimlessly fumbling for 
her smelling-bottle ; “I, too, who have 
always — all my life been physically inca- 
pable of giving pain to any one ! I, who 
never could bear to see a fly killed — but 
— since you insist upon it — since you use 
compulsion — since you give me no choice 
— I suppose I must be driven — though 


128 


JOAN. 


certainly no one in the world is less fitted 
for the task than I — to tell you that — 
that — your father — ” 

She stops. 

“ Go on! ” 

“That your father— really it is bar- 
barous to have to say such things of a 
parent to a child — that your father, after 
having been the scapegrace and Mte noire 
of his family all his life — after having 
nearly broken his father’s heart, and run 
through all his mother’s fortune, into 
which he came at his majority — after 
having put himself entirely out of his 
own station in society by contracting 
a mesalliance with a barrack-master’s 
daughter — you must excuse my saying 
so, but it was what his family called it — 
put a climax to his — his— misfortunes 
by—” 

Again she stops, dead short, gasping. 

“ Go on 1 ” 

“ By— by — well, it is hot my fault — 
you will have it — by forging his employ- 
er’s signature — ^he had been taken into 
the employ of a provincial banker as clerk 
— to a check for a large amount. Out of 
regard to the family, and especially out 
of regard to your grandfather, whom all 
the world reverenced, the banker ab- 
stained from prosecuting, and, I am told, 
honestly tried to hush up the matter. 
But you know” (with a shrug) “how 
impossible it is to keep things of this 
kind quiet. In a day the affair had got 
wind, in a week the whole country-side, 
high and low, gentle and simple, knew it. 
Soon afterward, fortunately — one may 
really say, providentially — your father 
died. There, I hope you are satisfied 
now ! ” sinking down on a chair, and 
breaking, behind her swaddling veil, into 
a torrent of feeble tears. 

There is a silence, a dead, icy silence ’ 
at least in the room ; for outside God’s 
good air is full of merry noises — the holi- 
day shrieks of the scampering Campi- 
doglio children, the triumphant clucking 
of the Sardanapalus hens. After a while : 

“What,” says Joan, in a rough, slow 


whisper ; reeling as one drunk, while her 
haggard eyes roll round the miserable 
finery of the little garish room — “ what 
— is — this — you — have been saying? There 
— is — something — wrong — about my ears ! 
I — hear wrong.” Anotherpause. “What,” 
her voice rising with sudden leap into an 
anguished loudness, as, staggering for- 
ward, she convulsively clutches the wrists 
of the cowering old woman, while her 
wild eyes turn the full agony of their 
blaze on her face — “ what ! do you know 
who it is that you are speaking to ? Do 
you know that it is I — Joan Dering — 
whom you have been telling that her 
father was a forger f that it was only by 
accident that he did not die in a felon’s 
jail? You have lost your wuts, I say! 
you have lost yoiu’ wits ! ” spasmodically 
shaking the frightened hands that she 
holds. 

“I have done nothing of the kind,” 
says Mrs. Wolferstan, thoroughly alarmed 
and sobbing angrily; “let me go! you 
have no right to be so violent I I. have 
not said one word for the truth of which 
I cannot vouch. I am hardly likely to be 
inventive on such a subject; ask your 
aunt — ask anybody.” 

The sound of her peevish, .tremulous 
voice seems to bring Joan back to sanity. 

Slowly she looses her hands, and tot- 
ters blindly back against the wall.” 

“It is true, then !”. she says, under 
her breath, “True— true — true!” re- 
peating the word over several times, as 
if it were one of unfamiliar sound and 
strange meaning. 

There is another lead-footed silence. 
Mrs. Wolferstan is ruefully regarding her 
wrists, on which Joan’s agonized grasp 
has left distinct red marks. Joan herself is 
still leaned against the wall, which alone 
seems to prevent her falling; her hands 
clinched together in icy wedlock, her 
eyes stiffly fixed ; her red mouth pinched 
and pale, her dimples murdered and dead. 
Then she speaks in a harsh, marred voice, 
with gaps between the broken words : 

“They knew it, then, all along — all 


JOAN. 


129 


these years the people at Bering knew 
it ! — among whom I held my head so high 
and lorded it over them because they 
were not so purely horn as I? They 
knew it, and they did not taunt me with 
it — did not throw it in my teeth. Great 
God! they were forbearing!” lifting 
arms and clasped hands high above her 
head, and then letting them despairingly 
drop again. ' 

“ I suppose that they thought it kinder 
to keep you in the dark,” says Mrs. Wol- 
f erstan, querulously ; for the tears she has 
shed have taken all the gum out of her 
eyelashes, and sent smeary runlets down 
her party-colored cheeks ; “ though, for 
my part, I think they were extremely ill- 
judged! ” 

“Kinder! kinder! kinder !” cries the 
girl, with a wild laugh, her voice at each 
word scaling new heights of woe. “ Bo 
you call that kind? If they had been 
kind, they would have taught me, as soon 
as I could speak, that I was not like other 
children ; that I had no right to play 
with them, or have hopes or a future like 
theirs. As soon as I could understand 
anything they should have told me that 
God had sent me into the world branded 
— hranded to my life’s end ! ” 

At the last words she falls forward on 
her trembling knees before a chair, and 
her stricken head sinks heavily on the 
gaudy, faded worsted seat. There she 
lies, absolutely motionless, without a 
moan or a cry ; only now and then a short 
dry sob tells that she still lives : that her 
aching soul is stiU held in the prison of 
her sweet, white body. Outside still go on 
the gay every-day noises ; the quick feet 
and high, loud voices of the glad chil- 
dren ; the emulous crowing of two rival 
cocks, each resolute to have the last 
word. 

“ I never was placed in such a position 
in my life,” says Mrs. Wolf erstan, begin- 
ning to sob again, and helplessly eying 
her prone companion. “ I, too, to whom 
the sight of suffering has always been 
unendurable ; I remember when I was a 
9 


child, when my canary died — I think the 
cat killed it — I cried without stopping for 
three whole days ; they could not pacify 
me. I said, ‘ Leave me alone, I will die 
too.’ I recollect it as if it were yester- 
day.” 

Her foolish words knock at the door 
of Joan’s brain without gaining any ad- 
mittance. They convey no more mean- 
ing to her mind than does the talk of the 
loud evening rooks to us. After an interval 
— a long, long, interval, neither of them 
ever knows how long — Joan slowly lifts 
her face — a face unswollen, undiscolored 
by any tears, for tears that come hurry- 
ing at the call of any surface butterfly 
sorrow hold cruelly aloof from a master- 
grief — a face across which is forever 
written the superscription of an unutter- 
able woe. Then she speaks in a collect- 
ed, even voice, no longer hoarse or dis- 
traught. 

“ When you first came here to-day,” 
she says, addressing Mrs. Wolf erstan, and 
holding her by the solemnity of her great 
and woful eyes, “ you told me that when 
you had explained yourself I should agree 
with you. You are right; I do agree 
with you.” No answer. Another heavy 
silence. “ You came,” says Joan, slowly, 
still in the same composed tone, with not 
even a gasp or catching of the breath, 
“to rescue your son from the infamy of 
marrying a forger’s daughter.** Well, you 
have succeeded — ^he is safe. And now, 
will you go, please ? I think I should be 
glad if you would go.” 

Mastered by the silent tragedy of her 
eyes, the other turns without a word and 
moves limp and crestfallen to the door, 
but before she can turn the door-handle 
Joan is again beside her. 

“I was wrong,” she says, “discour- 
teous ; I ask your pardon. If I had been 
in your place I should have done as you 
have done ; probably I should have done 
it more harshly, for, in the face of such a 
peril, one could not be scrupulous, or pick 
one’s words. I beaf you no malice. Good- 
by ” 


130 


JOAN. 


As she speaks she puts out an ice-cold 
hand, and the other, taking it, silently 
goes. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

The day that has been so fair and 
brave, is waning. The gray-wimpled 
night steps on. The rival cocks have each 
led his separate file of wives, daughters, 
and cousins, to the privacy of the hen- 
house perch, where, already slumbering 
with sunk necks, drooped tails, and pout- 
ed busts, they antedate the coming night. 
The Oampidoglio children still shriek and 
plunge and ravage, with all the terrible 
vivacity of youth. 

The hour draws nigh when Wolferstan 
and his love are again to meet, for sweet 
good-night speech by the twilight waves. 
It was only by this concession that she es- 
caped in the morning from his grudging 
eyes and detaining arms. For a quarter 
of an hour he has been trudging impa- 
tiently up and down on the soft, loose sand 
and sour, small grass of the dunes, his 
quick look turned sometimes seaward, 
but oftener toward the inland landscape, 
where, in the utter mellow stillness of 
even, spread the shaven cornfields, the 
steamy meadows, the red cottage-roofs, 
and heavy- weighted apple-orchards. 

To his flurrying thought, his love’s 
steps seem tardy. Each moment that 
she delays is so much coin filched from 
their treasury. "What right has she thus 
to fritter the golden sands of their love- 
time? As he so chiding] y thinks, there 
becomes visible to his intent eyes a fig- 
ure, small and indistinct from distance, 
outlined against the pallid primrose of 
the sky. It is she, at last. His first im- 
pulse is to go hastily to meet her, but a 
superstitious feeling restrains him. 

“ I will not go to her ; she shall come 
to me; we will meet on the same spot 
where we met this morning; it will be a 
good omen.” 

So he stands still and watches her. 


She seems to him to come but slowly; 
and her feet, being such light ones, and 
having so slender a body to upbear, trail 
but heavily after each other. But she is 
close to him now ; she, who, five minutes 
ago, was a dim little blur — a blur that 
might turn out tp be a cow, or a sheep, 
or even 'one of the Sardanapalus pigs — is 
now seen to be a wonderful fair woman, 
of high stature and grave countenance, in 
a black gown. He had meant to have re- 
proached her ; but, as he looks upon her, 
his reproaches die away in utter joy and 
pride. Dumbly be holds out his arms to 
her. Dumbly, too, she comes up to him ; 
and, without any bidding, lays her soft 
arms about his neck, and, lifting her face 
to his, says, in a clear, plain voice, “Kiss 
me.” 

As she speaks, no red love-wave — no 
rosy torrent of virgin shame — sweeps 
across her cheeks ; her eyelids do not 
quiver, nor her eyes droop. Wolferstan' 
is not the man to need that such an in- 
vitation should be twice repeated. Pro- 
foundly astonished (though not even to 
himself would he own this), and still 
more profoundly glad, he snatches her 
to his hurrying heart.- After a while she 
withdraws herself somewhat from him, 
and, still, holding up a face whose white- 
ness not even all his many kisses have 
been able -to dye with any vermeil-stain, 
she says in a calm, slow voice : 

“ You are surprised at me ! — you won- 
der what has made me suddenly so for- 
ward! — ah!” (with a long sigh), “one 
does not stand much on forms when one 
is saying ‘ good-by ! ’ ” 

“Good-by? ” he cries, startled; then, 
quickly recovering his happy confidence 
— “ ah ! you mean ‘ God be with you ! ’ 

I hope he will ; now that you are beside 
me, he is more likely to be.” 

“ Nay,” she answers, looking at him 
with a solemn tenderness, “ I mean 
‘ good-by ’ — ‘ farewell ’ — whatever other 
word most means leave-taking! ” 

‘Leave-taking!” he echoes, alarmed 
and puzzled ; “ why should we speak 


\ 


JOAN. 


131 


of leave-taking ? — are you going any- 
where?” 

“Ay ! ” she says, with a hitter smile; 
“I am going away from hope and love 
and pleasantness ! I wish — oh, I wish that 
I were going away from life too ! but that 
is not likely! — at twenty, that is not like- 
ly!” 

“Joan!” he says, now thoroughly 
frightened, while a vague, cold terror gir- 
dles his heart and chills the hot river in 
his young veins — “ Joan ! what are you 
saying? I know that there can be noth- 
ing amiss really — what could there be ? — 
what could have happened within these 
few hours? ” 

“Nothing has happened!” she an- 
swers, her pale lips still curving in that 
most bitter smile; “only that to-day I 
have been my own sexton, and Jiave been 
burying my past and my future together 
in one deep grave. O love ! ” (in a voice, 
anguished indeed, but more natural — 
more like herself than her late so icy com- 
posure), “your labor is lost! you need 
not try to hide it from me any more ; I 
know — to-day I know — what I am ! your 
mother has told me ! ” 

“ What ! ” he cries, his face, a moment 
ago goodly and content as the fleckless 
sky above him, or the meek summer sea 
at his feet, all overcast with sudden clouds, 
while his eyes dart steely shafts of anger 
and fear — “ what ! she has dared ! — ” 

“ Hush ! ” she says, with low au- 
thority, laying her cold hand on his 
wrathful mouth — “ hush ! She did well ! 
Had I been she, and she I, I should have 
done the same. I am glad — ” (speaking 
with firm and weighty slowness), “yes, 
glad that I have learned in time what an 
injury I was going to do you ; I think — ” 
(the solemnity of her tone tempered by a 
great softness) — “I think that you know 
that I would not willingly do you a mis- 
chief ! ” 

“ I am glad of it,” he says, quickly. 
“ God grant that we mean the same 
thing! There is only one real mischief 
that you could do me! ” 


“And you knew it all along — all the 
time ! ” she cries — a sort of triumph in 
her voice, “ and yet you would have kept 
silence all your life, and have set me at 
your side as your honored wife! O 
love, it was well and worthily done of 
you, and I thank you — from the bottom 
of my heart I thank you for it ! ” 

As she speaks, she humbly takes his 
hand and kisses it, while the tears, so long 
in coming, shower at last, in plentiful 
salt rain from her parched eyes. 

“For God’s sake, stop!” cries An- 
thony, snatching away his hand; “you 
humiliate me ! Why, pray ! ” he goes on, 
red and stammering, “ why should I have 
told you about it ? why should we waste 
time in speaking of so ugly and outworn, 
and — and — unimportant a subj ect ? Have 
not we had pleasanter themes, Joan? ” 
She shakes her head sadly. “ Unim- 
portant, is it? Alas! it is important 
enough to set us two forever asunder ! ” 

“ What ! ” he says, falling back uncer- 
tainly a step or two, as if one had heavily 
and suddenly struck him, while a great 
dread slides coldly along his limbs, and 
chokes back the crowding words that are 
hurrying to his lips. 

“Ho you think,” she says, speaking 
with the greatest sweetness, yet resolution 
withal, “ that I love you so poorly as to 
saddle you forever with my disgrace? 
Ho you think that I will let you — willing 
as you are — God bless you for that will- 
ingness ! — couple your good, clean name 
with my stained one ? ” 

“ How ! ” he cries ; the laggard words 
coming quickly enough now, in torrent- 
flow ; words of utter scorn and contempt ; 
“do I understand you right? Is it my 
rational, sweet, sensible Joan that is 
speaking? Are you going to set up a 
phantom, a bogy between us ? — because 
there are no real hinderances — because the 
path that leads from me to you is smooth 
and level as path can be — must you your- 
self build up impediments and throw ob- 
stacles? — impediments of straw — obsta- 
cles of air ! ” 


132 


JOAN. 


She is silent. Her wet eyes have 
traveled away to the red western wave, 
which seems to be dyed with the blood 
of all the roses that have blossomed since 
the world was. 

“ It makes my blood boil to hear you 
talk of your stained name ! ” he says, 
feverishly, beginning restlessly to walk 
up and down on the little hillock ; “ how 
can any stain come near my unsullied 
lily? and that name” (stopping beside 
her, and speaking with the utmost eager- 
ness) — “ and that name ! — not much lon- 
ger will it be yours! Soon, very soon, 
mine, which you praise for its cleanness, 
will be yours too ; will not it, beloved ? 
will not it ? ” 

“ Never! ” she says, looking solemnly 
and proudly up to heaven’s vault dark- 
ening over their heads. “ I shall never 
bear your or any other man’s name ; into 
no man’s home will I carry my dis- 
grace.” 

“ You are consistent! ” says the young 
man, bitterly ; “ in one breath you tell 
me that you will never willingly do me a 
mischief ; and in the next you threaten 
me with what you know will put out my 
sun and darken my day ! ” 

“Not darken it ! ” she says, gently. 
“ God forbid ! perhaps for a little while 
I may sadden it ; but in that I do you no 
unkindness ; we are none of us the worse 
for being a little sad sometimes. Oh, my 
love ! ” (breaking into a most tender, rue- 
ful, drowning smile) — “ my comely love ! 
you are so good and goodly ; your life is 
so rich in all pleasant things, that you 
cannot fret long ; it would be unnatural 
that you should, because one pleasant 
thing — such a poor and paltry one, too — 
is taken from you ! ” 

“ It is not taken from, me ! ” he cries, 
in a rough, loud voice, upgathering her 
into his strong embrace ; “do not dare 
to say so ! As easily can your small fingers 
unwind my arms from about you — let 
them try ! so easily can you unwind your 
life from mine ! they are twisted together, 
warp and woof! Only God — only God, I 


say, has leave to give and again take back 
his gifts, none blaming him ! ” 

She is dumb. Silently weeping, she 
lies in the jail of her one love’s vigorous 
arms ; in no hurry, perhaps, to escape 
from that embrace, so soon to be forever 
foregone. And he. knows that he might 
as well have spoken to the deaf tides, or 
the glooming sands. With a sudden re- 
vulsion of feeling — in a transport of re- 
sentment and sharp pain, he lets her go ; 
looses her so suddenly, that at first she 
staggers as one about to fall. 

“ Go ! ” he says, rudely ; while through 
the dusk of the hastening night his eyes 
dart their angry, bright ray into hers 
“ go ! — I set you free ! — practise your 
cheap fortitude ! complete the renuncia- 
tion that costs you so little ! If you are as 
pure as snow, you are also as cold. Go ! ” 

“Am I cold? ” she says, in a low and 
broken voice, though she lifts her fair 
head spiritedly, and her eyes meet his — 
meek, yet unflinching ; “if, to reckon up 
how many hours the difterent moments 
and half-hours of our meetings make up, 
and to count them alone as the grain of 
life, and all else .but the chaff — if that is 
to be cold — well, yes — then I am cold, 
and you do well to call me so.” 

Her limbs are trembling so much .that 
they feel as if they would give way be- 
neath her ; so she sits down on the dry, 
barren hill, and he throws himself on the 
ground beside her. There is a long, long 
silence ; while they two sit wordlessly 
looking out on the sea and listening to its 
pauseless song. The sea is a singer that 
never needs to stop and take breath. The 
sun is dead, and the waves have forgotten 
him — forgotten him as utterly as if he 
had never laid his royal head on their 
breast. They are paying their homage 
now to the lady moon, who, kiftled with 
lawny clouds, is beginning to float up the 
sky. She is only a half-moon : no great 
round, yellow, harvest orb ; and yet be- 
neath her a field of pale lustre spreads 
over the sea ; one broad white sail on the 
horizon has caught her light and glimmers 


JOAN. 


133 


with uncertain silver. Joan’s head has 
sunk on her love’s shoulder : their hands 
are closely locked together. He is the 
first to speak. 

“ Joan I ” he says, in a whisper of 
passionate persuasion, so low as to he 
hardly audible above the ocean’s quiet, 
plain song — “Joan! will you stay with 
me ? tell me that you will ! tell me that 
I have prevailed I ” 

She sighs heavily. 

“ Love 1 ” she says, in a deprecating 
voice, timorous yet resolved, “ do not 
thrust me from you as you did Just now ; 
but, indeed, I can never be your wife ; if 
I were, I should have no content or com- 
fort of my life for thinking what a wrong 
and a discredit I had done you I oh, be- 
loved — do not be angry with me — but 
you know that to not many of us is given 
a great stability of will or purpose ; what 
we wish to-day, often we unwish to- 
morrow : or if not to-morrow — to-morrow 
five years — to-morrow ten years — to-mor- 
row twenty years — and, whether it came 
soon or came late, always I should have 
upon me the heavy fear that a day might 
dawn when you would repent of the 
sacrifice you had made — when you would 
wish it again unmade, and when it would 
b^ too late to unmake it ! ” 

He does not answer. The pale moon 
is shining on his pale face, and coldly 
pointing out its discomfiture. 

“ I see,” she says, looking up to heaven 
with a solemn steadfastness, “ that God 
destines me for a lonely life ; oh, my dar- 
ling ! do not be sorry for me for that ; 
to-night, indeed” (sobbing quietly), “I 
think that I am as miserable as any woman 
can be, but even now I can look on ahead 
and see a life when I shall not be misera- 
ble — a life full of work to do and people 
to love ; and if, by-and-by, now and again, 
I hear of you as good and prosperous — 
prosperous in soul and in the higher life 
as well as in earthly well-being, then — 
then — though I am alone, I shall not be 
unhappy — certainly I shall not be un- 
happy ! ” 


He has buried his face on her knees 
that she may not see the tears that dis- 
figure it. She passes her light hand fond- 
ly over the smooth brown hair that the 
night-dews are already beginning to wet. 
The moon has risen higher. One can 
dimly see the long, cold, rippling smiles 
curve the cheek of the great water, and 
the snow-crests of the little waves shine 
whitely in turning over on the dark beach. 

“And if,” says Joan, weeping, though 
her eyes shine with a confident, clear 
light — “and if you are still resolute to 
love me — if death finds us still remember- 
ing each other, then who will dare to say 
that hereafter we may not belong to each 
other, in some other wof-ld, where the 
sins of the fathers are not visited on the 
children? Anthony, good-by! bid me 
God speed as I bid you! — I must go ! ” 

He has lifted his face from her lap : 
the face that is wont to be so debonair, 
so curved with young laughter, so lit up 

Joy* Marred and wan, you would 
hardly know it to be Anthony’s. 

“ Go ? ” he says, in an unsteady voice ; 
“ already? ” 

“Already!” she answers, stiU weep- 
ing; “it must be done, so it had best be 
done quickly ; oh, my one love ! ” (gir- 
dling him for the last time with her fair 
arms, and closely pressing him to her in- 
nocent breast), “ you have been very good 
and tender to me, and I would have been 
good and tender to you too ; we would 
have outdone each other in kindness and 
love ; God keep you, Anthony ! — though 
henceforth our roads lie apart, I pray — 
oh, pray you too — that perhaps they may 
meet at the end ! ” 

“ They will meet before the end! ” he 
cries, in a passionate loud voice; “say 
what you will — do what you will — we 
have not yet done with each other ; time, 
that wastes and crumbles everything, will 
waste and crumble your resolve — lovely 
and loving as you are, do you think that 
you will be able to bear the barren desert 
doom that you destine for yourself? It 
is impossible, monstrous, out of nature ! 


134 


JOAN. 


♦ 


yet — yet ” (his voice taking a note of al- 
most triumphant exultation) ‘‘yet — yet — 
you will come to me! — yet — yet again 
my arms will hold your beloved, sweet 
body 1 you will come to me, I tell you ! 
and, be it soon or be it late, I shall be 
ready — I shall be waiting ! ” 

“Will you?” she says, shaking, her' 
head sorrowfully with a sweet wet smile ; 
“I think not — I think that you. will grow 
tired before ‘l ' shall !\ nay, love ! till God, 
who makes all things clean, shall wipe 
away the stair^rom me, we two shall 
meet in love and fellowship never again ! ” 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

The Moberley tea has long been spread. 
The cold resurrection-pie — ^the pn,^ yiand 
on the earth’s face more abominable than 
hot resurrection-pie — already adorns the 
board, when Joan very softly opens the 
hall door, in the hope that, by an exceed- 
ingly cautious entry, she may succeed in 
slipping up-stairs unseen, unheard, un- 
questioned. But in this vain hope she is 
deceived ; for no sooner does the slight 
click that the latch gives in being lifted 
make itself heard, than the drawing-room 
door, which has apparently been purposely 
left ajar, opens suddenly, and in the aper- 
ture appears the form of Mrs. Moberley, 
while over her bounteous shoulders is 
seen a perspective of younger faces. Bell’s 
and Diana’s. 

“Why, bless me, child, where have 
you been ? ” cries the elder lady, in a tone 
of mixed anger and relieved anxiety; “I 
was just going to send out Sarah with a 
lantern to look for you. Do you know 
what time it is? ” 

The light in the passage is fortunately 
but dim. Joan’s head is bent, her hat is 
tilted over her eyes. 

“ I was sitting by the sea,” she says, 
faintly. “You know I love the sea.” 

“ The sea, indeed I ” retorts Mrs. Mo- 
berley, in a scolding and somewhat in- 


credulous tone. “ I think the sea has a 
broad back. To tell you the truth, young 
lady, I think you are far too fond of stra- 
mguing about by yourself at odd hours, 
when you know quite w'ell, too, that you 
need never go out alone ; it is but a poor 
compliment to your cousins, and I am 
sure I do not know w'hen either of them 
has ever refused to give you her com- 
pany.” 

“I am sorry,” answers Joan, bending 
her head— damp with the soft night-dews 
— still lower on her breast, and speaking 
in a small, submissive voice. 

“I must .say,” chimes in Bell, follow- 
ing one of the most unamiable rules that 
guide human nj^ure’s ‘often .^umiable 
actions, and giving a prod withLjher bay- 
onet, too, to the fallen — “I must say, 
Joan, that it was very shabby of you slip- 
ping out without giving any of us the 
least hint of what Mrs. Wolferstan came 
about, after all. Come, now, we may as 
well hear now, at all events ; or, perhaps ” 
— (with a huffy laugh) — “perhaps it is a 
secret, and I have no business to ask.” 

Joan’s white face takes a faint tinge of 
uneasy red at this question ; though, per- 
haps, the one jet of dim, ill-smelling gas 
does not betray her ; while, wdth infinite 
difficulty, she searches among her word- 
stores for an answer that shall be evasive, 
probable, and conciliating. But it is so 
long in coming that Arabella has time to 
speak again. 

_ “ It was a pity,” she says, sarcastically, 
“that you did not warn Mrs. Wolferstan 
how thin these walls are ; if you had, I 
think she would not have raised her 
voice so high. We heard her several 
times so loud — did not we, mother ? did 
not we, Di ? — we thought that you must 
be having a regular quarrel.” 

“ Did you ? ” says Joan, indistinctly, 
and catching her breath a little, as she 
leans heavily against the grimy marbled 
paper of the passage-wall. 

“ Dear me ! ” says Mrs. Moberley, re- 
covering her good-humor, which, indeed, 
she seldom mislays for long, and shaking 


JOAN-. 


135 


her head meditatively — “ dear me I what 
a thing dress is, to he sure ! She must be 
my age if she is a day ! She was married 
to old Wolferstan a good twelvemonth 
before Moberley offered to me ; and yet, 
to-day to see her back, and the jaunty 
way she skipped into the carriage, you 
might have taken her for sixteen.” 

“ If her back looks sixteen,” says 
Diana, trenchantly, “her face looks a 
hundred. For my part, I had rather strike 
a balance, and look fifty all over like you, 
mother ! ” 

_ “ Think of me in a sprigged frock and 
a flyaway hat like that I ” cries Mrs. Mo- 
berley, a fat laugh agitating her whole 
person like a dish of jelly too quickly 
carried; “I should do to frighten the 
crows. — Come along, girls ; if the tea is 
not drawn now it never will be, for it 
has been standing the best part of an 
hour.” 

And thus prosaically, with overdrawn 
tea and resurrection-pie, closes the most 
tragic day of Joan’s hitherto history. 
There are many tragedies that are acted 
in dumb show ; none buf the actors 
guessing at all that they are being played ; 
and there are many others that are clad 
in very homely and fustian clothes. There 
are two facts in human history — two, at 
first sight, contradictory propositions — 
that I think surprise me equally, viz., the 
ease with which we sometimes die ; and 
the difficulty that there sometimes is in 
killing us. Often a pin-prick lets out our 
souls. Often again, we are cut in two, 
as it were, like a worm or a snake, and 
yet manage to wriggle ourselves together 
again. As the days go on, Joan wonders 
at her own vitality. 

Between one sunrise and one moon- 
rise, in a space shorter than the life of a 
gnat or a convolvulus, she has seen her 
past and her future pass away hand-in- 
hand to a death which holds out no dim- 
mest hope of a resurrection. And yet she 
falls down senseless in no sudden syn- 
cope. She has no brain-fever. Neither 
her clear wits nor her even-pulsing health 


suffers any hurt or eclipse. When the 
cracked bell rings to dinner, she eats. 
When bedtime comes, she sleeps. When 
Mrs. Moberley’s caps pass the boundary 
of moderate dilapidation, she makes her 
new ones. Sometimes she laughs. It is 
mostly the dogs who make her laugh. In 
her human surroundings, she does not 
find much to stir her rare and tardy mer- 
riment; but she has always a smile for 
Mr. Brown, and mostly one for Eegy and 
Algy. Perhaps the very circumstance 
which, at the time, seems to put the 
crown upon her grief and discomfort ; 
viz., the stringent necessity for hiding 
her sorrow from the curious, prying Mo- 
berley eyes — stringent,dndeed, for, if it 
is known to the Moberleys, then it is also 
known to Micky; if to Micky, then also 
to the whole barracks ; if to all the 
barracks, then to all ITelmsley too — the 
necessity for concealing her tears, nay, 
altogether suppressing them for fear of 
the traces they leave, is, after aU, the 
best thing that could have happened to 
her. Perhaps the strain that she has to 
put upon herself — the obligation to eat 
when she is not hungry, to laugh when 
she is not mirthful, to talk when her 
tongue cleaves to the roof of her mouth 
— saves her from that collapse which 
sometimes follows an indulged grief. 

But she suffers ! oh, she suffers ! Her 
indigent room and meagre truckle-bed, 
her lame furniture and halt crockery, can 
bear witness that she suffers. Often, 
kneeling in the dark — (a candle might 
betray her) — with face hard pressed 
against the miserable rush-bottomed seat 
of one of her two chairs, she hears the 
hospital-clock toll the eerie hours of 
deepest night, while she, in wide-awake 
anguish, is wrestling with her trouble ; 
wrestling with the sometimes nigh-con- 
quering longing to take back again the 
good she has forgone ; to fulfill even thus 
early her love’s prophecy, and say to him, 
“I come to you! you have prevailed!” 
to feel once again his lips married in 
closest wedlock to hers ; to hear his joy- 


m 


JOAN. 


ous voice softly calling her by the small, 
old-fashioned name that he has thought 
so fair and sweet. But from all her con- 
tests she comes out dismally victorious. 
Daily the post goes out, and carries no 
message to the sweetheart she has dis- 
missed. 

“I must live in other people’s happi- 
ness!” she cries to herself a hundred 
times a day ; trying earnestly to brace 
her nerves and lift her heart to the level 
of that high but cold and diflScult des- 
tiny. But almost as often as she raises 
it, it falls back ; down-dragged by a most 
bitter human yearning for some warm, 
own private bliss ; some happiness that 
shines not only reflected from other 
faces, as the sun shines in water, or on 
burnished brass, but that shall be for 
warmth and glory and comfort, as the 
sun himself. 

'“Live in other people’s happiness? 
How is that possible ? As long as I have 
a mouth myself, will the food that is put 
into other mouths satisfy me ? Will it 
content me that other women’s arms 
infold their lovers, though mine are 
empty ? ” 

The one certain and tangible outcome 
of her pain is the resolve that every day 
strengthens, to have done, as soon as may 
be, with this life of dependence and in- 
ertia. Woman’s work indeed — at least 
bread-winning work — is not over-plenty 
in this present world ; neither is it ordi- 
narily pleasant or remunerative, or with 
much of hope or progress in it ; but it is 
work. In the energy of work — good 
work, bad work, what work you will — 
suffering is drowned. Never waste your 
pity on the real workers of this life. 
Harsh, unlovely, as their outward sur- 
roundings may apparently be, yet they 
neither ask for nor need your compassion. 
Who feels his wounds in the stress and 
heat of the fight ? 

Never, since she entered Mrs. Mober- 
ley’s door, has Joan’s determination to 
earn her own bread faltered or failed; 
she being ever of too high and free 


a spirit to sit down contentedly under 
the yoke of obligation and sloth. What 
alone has delayed the hitherto execution 
of her design is, diffidence as to her ’own 
competence for that special branch of la- 
bor, toward which almost every educated 
woman, to whom bread lacks, intuitively 
turns, viz., teaching. 

Her education, indeed — the wide, fine 
culture, whose original intention was to 
ornament and occupy the leisure of a lux- 
urious and wealthy life — has fitted her, 
more than most girls are fitted, for the 
task she has set herself, and her persever- 
ing lessons to Diana have given her, at 
least in some degree, the faculty of teach- 
ing and the habit of patience. The tool, 
then, is ready. All that yet lacks is the 
material to work upon. 

Miss Dering’s project meets with but 
small favor in her family’s eyes when she 
opens her mind to them upon it. 

“Please yourself and you’ll please 
me ! ” says Mrs. Moberley, in an offended 
tone ; using the formula of magnanimous 
sound but contracted meaning, which she 
always emp(k>ys when anything has oc- 
curred to ruffle her; “but I will say, 
Joan, that it is a sad take-down for us all ! 
Not one of us has ever had anything to do 
with teaching ; and, say what you please, 
it is no better than a kind of upper ser- 
vant, without any tips or perquisites ei- 
ther. However, ‘ a willful man wiU have 
his way,’ and, as soon as you are tired of 
your freak, you have nothing to do but 
dash into the train and come straight off 
here again I You will always find a knife 
and fork ready for you — always! ” 

They say that to all hands willing to 
labor work comes, but its coming is 
sometimes tardy. Though Joan’s short 
and temperately- worded advertisement 
has traveled off into every home where 
the Times, Standard, etc., make their 
way, yet, as the weeks go on, the post- 
man’s hands are not overladen with an- 
swers for her. No one seems very anx- 
ious to have Joan Dering to teach his 
progeny. For one person who slackly 


J 0 A'^. 


137 


and faintly desires a governess, nine hun- 
dred and ninety-nine earnestly and pray- 
erfully clamor for a cook. 

Since the insertion of the advertise- 
ment she has received but six replies in 
all : five to be at once dismissed as abso- 
lutely undesirable and utterly inadmissi- 
ble. The sixth is patently undesirable, 
too ; but, being the last, Joan is loath quite 
to dismiss it. She has even braced her 
mind to close with its untempting offers, 
if nothing better turn up. 

It is unjust, impossible, that she should 
keep Anthony forever in banishment from 
his own home, and anything, any servi- 
tude, any petty tyranny, would be prefer- 
able to his returning to find her still here. 
While she is yet in this state of uncertain- 
ty and oscillation, one more calamity be- 
falls her. Mr. Brown sickens — sickens 
of distemper — and languishes for many 
weeks, hovering between life and death. 

Any one who has watched this ter- 
rible disease will know of how perilous, 
cruel, and wearing a nature it is to the 
sufferer; how disheartening — sometimes 
heart-rending — to the human on-looker, 
powerless to assuage those so patiently- 
borne dumb agonies. Through long days 
Joan sits beside Mr. Brown’s sick-basket, 
scarcely giving herself time for necessary 
food, rest, or exercise. Through many 
vigils she watches by him; giving him 
his beef-tea, and his physic, with as tender 
a punctuality as if he were her brother. 

In painfully watching his ribs grow 
daily more prominent, his poor coat more 
staring, and his dear goggle eyes more 
pathetic, Joan goes nigh to forgetting for 
the moment (despise her as you wiU 
for it) that such a person as Wolferstan 
exists. Mr. Brown is certainly very ill, 
though never »eo ill as to be unable to 
shake hands ; once or twice, indeed, when 
he is at his worst, he gives the wrong 
paw — the left instead of the right — but, 
except for this trifling inaccuracy, he 
never forgets his accomplishment. As 
it is his only one, it is well that he should 
have a good, firm grip of it. 


By -and -by Joan’s patient nursing 
gains its reward, for Mr. Brown lives. 
He is spared, we will hope, for many 
future years of usefulness; to bury and 
again exhume many a bone, to insult 
many more dynasties of mysteriously ex- 
asperating butcher’s boys, to have his ears 
boxed by many another spiteful tomcat. 
Mr. Brown lives, and Joan is very — very 
glad! 


CHAPTER XXX. 

Time, the strong scythesman, mows 
the days. After all, this is an outworn 
simile, and will soon be unintelligible. 
Scythes are walking quickly away into 
the limbo of the past and the outgrown ; 
walking away after flails, spinning-wheels, 
and distaffs. 

In a short time we shall be obliged, 
in our metaphors and allegories, to rep- 
resent Time and Death, each with a 
steam mowing-machine. O Watt! — 
Watt ! you and your tea-kettle have 
made sad havoc in the poetry of our dai- 
ly life ! The brave summer fire has 
burned itself out to its last embers. The 
flower time is dead. The heavy-weight- 
ed purple fruit-time is dead too. Be- 
tween the death-days of these sister sea- 
sons the space always seems short and 
soon spanned : 

“ The squirrel’s granary is full, 

And the hai*vest done ! ” 

The plums have fulfilled their annual 
vocation of making jam, and causing 
colics ; the apples lie perdu in tarts ; the 
morella cherries have drunk themselves 
to death in brandy-bottles ; the hips and 
haws are quickly vanishing beneath the 
beaks of the little hungry finches ; and 
one recollects again that the holly — hard 
and prickly December beauty — exists. 
Earth has stripped off all her green rib- 
bons, and her rainbow gauds, and has 
lain down to take her rest in her russet 
gown. Of all her choristers, there is 


138 


JOAN. 


only the bold cock-robin left to sing her 
to sleep. It is four months and a bit 
since Wolferstan went — since, weeping- 
ly, his love said to him, “ God keep you, 
Anthony!” Four months! It is, then, 
time that she should be beginning to for- 
get him. Between us and the events of 
four months ago, a film is mostly drawn 
— a film, sometimes of a consistency no 
greater than a gossamer; sometimes as 
substantial as a stout cambric handker- 
chief. 

“We slightly remember our felicities, 
and the smartest strokes of affliction 
leave hut short smart upon us. Sense 
endureth no extremities, and sorrows 
destroy us or themselves.” 

Often we are inclined to pule and 
whimper over the weakness of our mem- 
ories, but who would accept the other 
alternative ? Who would care to recol- 
lect, with the vividness and accuracy 
with which he can recall the incidents of 
yesterday, his birth, his Alexandra bot- 
tle, his first whipping? Portland Villa, 
with the rest of the world, has taken the 
shivering plunge into winter — shivering, 
truly this year. Scourging winds, lashing 
rains, marrow-searching fogs, numbing 
frosts, glaring snows ! On all these in- 
struments in turn Winter plays his ter- 
rible marches and solemn fugues. He 
seems resolute to show in how infinite a 
variety of ways he can make himself 
feared and hated. But, indeed, who has 
ever doubted his dread abijity ? 

“A hard winter ! ” say even they who 
dwell in solid houses with well-seasoned 
doors and nicely-fitting windows ; how 
much more, then, the inhabitants of a 
gimcrack one-brick villa residence ! A 
villa residence, too, by no means in the 
best repair ! with slates lacking from the 
roof ; with dead-leaf-choked gutters and 
suffocated spouts. On Joan’s walls great 
green patches of damp, like ugly plague- 
spots, growths of furry mould, make 
their appearance. In the, eerie winter 
nights the wind-giant takes the rotten 
casements in his Titan hands, and makes 


the whole flimsy house stagger and trem- 
ble. Under the warped door, through 
the chinks and gaps of the window- 
frames, comes the iced blast ; and pierces 
to the bone the poor soul who, such a 
few months ago, was panting and gasp- 
ing in this now frozen attic. Oh, if she 
could but have saved some of her then 
superfluous warmth for these miserable 
winter nights ! 

The Abbey is empty. Since the exo- 
dus it made on one August day, the fam- 
ily has not returned. For the first time 
within the memory of man, it does not 
come down for Christmas; nor perform 
its wonted duty of Christmas-treeing and 
bran-pieing the children of the neighbor- 
hood, dancing the adolescents, and din- 
ing the adults. 

It is Christmas-day — a streaming, pour- 
ing, Christmas-day, when earth and heav- 
en fold each other in one gray embrace, 
and the horizon is bounded by the win- 
dow-pane. The Moberley family have 
dauntlessly, with soaked boots and sludg- 
ed petticoats, slipped and swum along 
the flooded road — half ice, half dreary 
thaw — to the garrison church. They 
have listened to a sermon evidently ori- 
ginally written for a fine Christmas-day, 
and, by some oversight, not adapted to 
the present circumstances — a sermon in 
which the clergyman directed their atten- 
tion and admiration toward the glorious 
sunbeams streaming into the church, 
which, in point of fact, is so dark that 
the gas has to be lit. 

They are at home again now ; are 
also again dry, and have dined. For a 
wonder the butcher has not forgotten to 
bring the beef, nor is there lacking one 
of those puddings so unaccountably asso- 
ciated with Christ’s birth, Mrs. Mober- 
ley even, with desperate determination 
to make merry, insists on brewing a 
small bowl of punch, and proposes sev- 
eral dismal toasts. “ The queen ! ” “ The 
military ! ” etc. They are drunk in de- 
jected silence. 

“It is not in the least like Christ- 


JOAN. 


139 


mas ! ” slie says, for the twentieth time ; 
“ since the year that your papa died ” — 
(glancing at Mr. Moberley’s picture which 
Sarah, in a well-meant hut ill-executed 
effort to he seasonable and festive, has 
smothered to the nose in funeral yew) — 
“ since the year that your papa died, I 
never remember such a Christmas ! — 
never ! ” 

In the corner of her usually jovial 
eye, there is a tear ; whether due to her 
lost mate or her present ennui is not 
known. 

“ And to think of this time last year! ” 
says Bell, beginning to cry; “just at this 
hour we were thinking of going to dress 
for the ball at the barracks ; Bobby But- 
ler’s bouquet had just come, and we were 
comparing notes — do you recollect, Di? 
— as to which was the choicest, his or 
Micky’s I — mine had more camellias — 
yours more stephanotis ! — and now 1 — ” 

Her sobs choke her. 

“The infirmary hall indefinitely post- 
poned! ” says Diana, beginning tragically 
to check off their misfortunes on her fin- 
gers; “the assembly utterly quashed! 
no talk of anything at the barracks, and 
the Abbey shut up ! I declare I do not 
see what use there is in going on living ! ” 

Joan’s leaden heart echoes this sen- 
timent, though for widely-different rea- 
sons. On what portion of her life dare 
she fix her eyes ? She must keep them, 
if possible, glued to this narrow strip of 
barren present on which she stands. 
Against her will, her winged thoughts 
carry her back to that last-gone Ohrist- 
mas-day, which seems to her now to be 
clothed in gold and pearl and crimson, 
like some opulent apocalyptic vision. As 
if it were some other J oan, she sees her- 
self sitting as hostess in her great carved 
chair at the end of the long and dainty 
table ; the bounteous red fire roaring and 
racing up the wide-throated chimney; 
the softly shining white tapers in old 
Venetian chandelier and polished brass 
sconces ; the goodly throng of merry 
guests ; the gay stir of talk ; the bandied 


repartee; the thrust and parry of light 
wit. Let us at least thank whatever gods 
there he, that we are not allowed to see 
our own faces in the future’s dread look- 
ing-glass ! But if the “ was ” is hard to 
face, how much harder the “might have 
been ” — that radiant child that died at its 
birth ! By this time, she might have been 
Wolferstan’s wife. By this time the fe- 
ver and effervescence of lover-love might 
have been lost and swallowed up in the 
wide, calm sea of wedded bliss. 

She turns with a shudder from her 
own lot — the annihilated past, the numb 
present, the ink-colored future! But 
though her own life-garden be laid 
waste; though its flowers be dead and its 
sweet buds trampled and gone — yet is 
this any reason why, by her gloom, she 
should make y-et more dull and stale the 
narrow lives around her ? 

“You despair too soon!” she says, 
with a smile, whose neighborhood to tears 
they are both too preoccupied and too 
dull-sighted to perceive; “you do not 
know from what unlooked-for quarter 
something may spring up for you! how 
little you expected the yeomanry dance ! ” 

Mrs. Moberley shakes her head. “ I 
am not a grumbler ! ” she says, speaking- 
with slow emphasis ; “ I take the fat with 
the lean ; but this I will say, that, hap- 
pen what may, no bit of luck — no wind- 
fall, or legacy, or anything else, ever 
comes our way : if there were to be a rain 
of gold on aU the country round to-mor- 
row, it is my belief that it would leave 
us as dry as Gideon’s fleece ! ” 

Against so resolved a melancholy as 
this, who can strive? Joan desists from 
the attempt and goes with the stream. 
This dejection lasts with a few intervals 
of a more sanguine character throughout 
Ohristmas-week ; nor is the weather of a 
nature to disperse it. The old year weeps 
itself away. It is New-Year’s-day now. 
The new year has come in with no flourish 
of yellow sunbeams ; no loud trumpeting 
of herald winds ; no ermine mantle of 
snow. It has crept in noiseless and sul- 


140 


J 0 AK. 


len, as if it were ashamed of itself. Even 
if there had been any sunshine to-day, it 
would by this time have been gone; for 
the short winter’s day has closed in. That 
hour has come which, in summer, seems 
almost at the beginning of the day ; in 
winter, at the end. 

It is toward five o’clock. The cur- 
tains in the Moberley drawing-room are 
drawn together as closely as insufficient 
stuff and rings that decline to run will al- 
low. Neither lamp nor candle is lit, and 
up the chimney climbs a merry, well-fed 
fire, that sends long shadows up wall and 
ceiling. It must be a very ugly room, in- 
deed, that can look ugly when lighted by 
a cheerful fire, and a cheerful fi^e alone. 

"We have all our heaux jours ; and the 
drawing-room at Portland Villa is look- 
ing almost pretty, thanks to being only 
half seen. On the floor, beside Mr. 
Brown’s basket, Joan is sitting. He has 
insisted on shaking hands no less than 
twelve times running, and, thanks to his 
convalescent state, has been indulged in 
this unnecessarily often-repeated saluta- 
tion. Bell is hanging over a chair-back, 
which she is idly tilting, and is address- 
ing him as “ my ownest wuffy-wuffy,” a 
remark which he is treating with the si- 
lent contempt that so foolish an apos- 
trophe deserves. The door opens, and a 
head (for a wonder not Sarah’s) is put in. 
With one leap the dogs bound from sleep 
into bark. Even Mr. Brown staggers on 
to his shaky legs, and contributes his 
feeble mite of anathema. 

“ Any admission except on business? ” 
asks a noisily merry man’s voice. “ May 
I be allowed to announce myself, as Sarah 
does not seem inclined to do so ? ” 

It is Mr. Brand. 

“ You are quite a stranger,” cries Mrs. 
Moberley, holding out both hands to her 
warmly welcome guest. — “BeU, poke the 
fire. — You see we are having blind-man’s 
holiday ; but, indeed, you find us all sad 
invalids; we caught shocking colds on 
Christmas-day. Bell’s has gone to her 
face ” — (and, indeed, to a close observer. 


Miss Moberley’s countenance does present 
a rhomboid or gibbous appearance) — 
“Diana’s to her throat. The night before 
last we were quite frightened, she could 
scarce swallow ; mine to my chest — bark ! 
bark ! bark ! it tears me to pieces ! J oan 
is the only one of us that is hale and sound 
— nothing ails Joan! ” 

“ Nothing ails Miss Joan, eh ? ” says 
Mr. Brand, glancing down at the little 
regal head ; up and down whose burnished 
hair the red fire-gleams are at merry play ; 
at the long lily neck, meek, yet proud, 
too; at the large white eyelids, so ob- 
stinately drooped ; and speaking in that 
tone of confident jocosity which he never 
dares employ when Ute-d,-tete with Miss 
Dering; but which he mostly uses when 
backed by the support and presence of 
the Moberley family. ‘ ‘ Nothing ails Miss 
Joan, eh ? — that is well ! ” 

Joan makes no sort of rejoinder. She 
never answers Mr. Brand unless he puts 
a point-blank question to her ; and even 
, then she seldom spares him anything 
larger than a “ yes ” or a “ no.” 

“You are as welcome as flowers in 
May,” cries Mrs. Moberley, whose voice 
has already regained three-fourths of its 
normal joviality. — “ Eegy I Algy I Char- 
lie ! I am ashamed of you ! make room, 
sirs, make room ! — And, if you have 
brought us a bit of news, you are wel- 
comer still 1 We are famished for news.” 

“ Well, I am glad to be able for once 
in my life to oblige you,” replies Micky, 
with complacent familiarity, holding his 
broad fingers to the blaze and chafing 
them ; “ for, as it happens, I have a piece 
of news — a large new piece.” 

“ Not reaUy? ” 

“You are not joking ? ” 

“ What is it ? ” in three separate but 
simultaneous volleys. 

“ Ah, that is telling ! ” answers Micky, 
with a tantalizing school-boy laugh ; “ you 
must guess.” 

“ I hope it is not any stupid public 
news ! ” says Bell, suspicious ; “ nothing 
about the ministry or the budget, or any- 


JOAN. 


141 


tiling tiresome of that kind ; I do not call 
that news.” 

“ It is not public news.” 

“ Is it about anybody we know ? ” 
asks Diana, her fears taking a slightly 
different direction from her sister’s. 

“It is about somebody whom we all 
know — even Miss Joan,” with a rather 
vindictive look at the silent figure, which 
has not changed its posture by a hair’s 
breadth, or, beyond a cold hand-shake, 
shown any consciousness of his presence. 

“ Bobby Butler has exchanged? ” 

“ Jackson has got his step? ” 

“Or is going to be married?” sug- 
gests Mrs. Moherley, with a jolly laugh. 
“ I do love to hear of a marriage ! After 
aU” (with a sigh), “it is much the hap- 
piest state I ” 

“ Go to the top of the class,” cries 
Micky, facetiously ; “ you are nearest the 
mark! It is a marriage, but it is not 
Jackson I it is not ” (looking reassuringly 
round on the girls) — “it is not any of 
us ! ” 

“ Not any of you? ” echoes Bell, in a 
tone of mixed relief and disappointment; 
for, if Mr. Brand has thus taken all poten- 
tial sting out of his intelligence, he has 
also robbed it of its strongest element of 
excitement.. “It is about some one who 
thinks himself a very much greater man 
than any of -ms/” continues Micky, with 
a rather spiteful intonation. “I should 
be sorry to buy him at his own valuation, 
and sell him at mine. There! I have 
given you a lead now ! ” 

“ Not Wolferstan ! ” “ Not An - 

thony! ” “Not the colonel! ” cry the 
three women, starting suddenly upright 
in their chairs, with wide eyes and pant- 
ing breasts. 

Mr. Brand nods. “ Right you are ! 
it is Wolferstan.” 

There is an awed silence. Mrs. Mo- 
berley is the first to break it. 

“ Caught at last ! ” she says, shaking 
her head several times, and speaking with 
a pensive accent. “Well, well! I should 
not wonder if he left a good many sore 


hearts behind him. Bonny fellow! he 
was not given those gray eyes for noth- 
ing.” 

“And who is the lady?” asks Bell, 
with a large sigh ; “ somebody high, no 
doubt? — a member of the peerage, I 
should not wonder ? ” 

“ Nothing of the kind ! ” replies the 
young man, brusquely ; “a plain ‘miss,’ 
like anybody else. I know nothing of 
her ” — (in a somewhat hold-cheap voice) 
— “no more, I should fancy, do you; 
though they say that she was staying at 
the Abbey in the autumn ; possibly you 
may have seen her drive by. Beauchamp 
— or some such name.” 

“Seen her drive by, indeed]” cries 
Bell, magnificently tossing her mane; 
“ why of course we know her ! I should 
think we did — of course we have met at 
the Abbey.” 

‘‘ She was there the only time we ever 
dined there,” puts in Diana, hastily ; “ but 
she never spoke to or took the least no- 
tice of us.” 

Joan is the only one of the party whom 
Mr. Brand’s information has apparently 
not galvanized. At his news — (though 
certainly it must be news to her too) — 
no smallest exclamation passes her lips. 
When he spoke, she was stroking Mr. 
Brown. She is stroking him still. Her 
little white hand is passing slowly down 
his back from, his neck, along his tawny 
coat to his tail, and so again. The only 
difference is, that then it was a conscious 
action; now it is an absolutely uncon- 
scious one. 

What a long way off these people’s 
voices sound ! Surely Micky’s laugh must 
be in the next county, at least ! Are they 
dreadful dream-people ? Is this a dream- 
dog that is licking her fingers ? 

“ It is quite an old affair, I am told,” 
pursues Mr. Brand, affably beginning to 
ornament his main fact with supplemen- 
tary details; “he has been sighing ten 
years, it seems ! ” 

“ I always thought he looked as if ho 
had a history,” says Bell, in her south- 


142 


JOAN. 


wind voice; “if you remember, I said 
so.” 

“ I do not believe a word of it I ” cries 
Diana, darting one hasty lightning-glance 
toward her cousin, and speaking with 
trembling young voice and poppy -red 
cheeks ; “ as he is the only person of the 
least consequence in the neighborhood, 
they must always be talking of him ; 
sometimes they marry him; sometimes 
they make him elope with other people’s 
wives; sometimes they break his ribs 
out hunting; and never — never is there 
the least grain of truth in it ! ” 

“I am sorry to be obliged to contra- 
dict a lady ! ” rejoins Mr. Brand, afiably 
still, though with a slight streak of olfense 
in his tone at having the authenticity of 
his intelligence impugned; “but, if I tell 
you that it came from Mrs. Wolferstan 
herself, you will perhaps allow that his 
mother is not unlikely to be well in- 
formed.” 

“She will be old Mrs. Wolferstan, 
now, really,” says Bell, simpering, “in 
contradistinction to young Mrs. "Wolfer- 
stan. I wonder how she will like that? ” 

“I recollect her now, perfectly! ” 
cries Mrs. Moberley, in a tone of victory, 
having apparently during the last few 
moments been raking in the ashes of her 
memory for Miss Beauchamp; “a dash- 
ing-looking girl, with fine falling shoul- 
ders! — a shade too stout, perhaps, but 
that is a criticism that comes ill from 
me, you will say ! ” (with a good-hu- 
mored laugh). 

“And when is it to be?” asks Bell, 
in her softest stock-dove tone, suited to 
the tender theme. “Is there any time 
named ? Easter ? "Whitsun ? ” 

“ Easter ! Whitsun ! ” repeats Mr. 
Brand, derisively. “Do you think that 
a man who has been languishing ten years 
is likely to defer his bliss much longer ? 
It is to be at once ! at once ! You may 
depend on the accuracy of my informa- 
tion ! ” (with a rather defiant glance 
toward Diana). “I make a point of 
never repeating mere on-dits.'^ 


“ There will be plenty of gay doings, 
no doubt ! ” cries Mrs. Moberley, a frisky 
sparkle in her eye, scenting the carnage 
from afar, like a glad old vulture. “ They 
kept" it up pretty well when he came of 
age ; and of course there will be double 
as much now ! — a man’s marriage is twice 
as important an event as his majority, any 
day.” 

“The one he can help, the other he 
cannot ! ” says Micky, with levity. 

“Joan! ” cries Bell, in a tone of ec- 
stasy; “Joan, you were right! — you 
prophesied that something would spring 
up for us, from a quarter we least ex- 
pected! I believe you were in the se- 
cret ! ” 

“Miss Joan has not given us her 
opinion yet ! ” says Mr. Brand, eying 
Miss Dering with that mixture of hurt 
vanity and loath admiration with which 
he usually regards her. “We have not 
heard the sound of your voice yet. Miss 
Joan ! Have you nothing to say ? ” 

At his voice Joan starts a Tittle and 
slightly shivers. One of these dream- 
people is speaking to her, and she must 
answer him. Even at this numb moment 
some instinct of self-preservation — (in 
her present half-stunned state it can 
scarcely be more than instinct) — prompts 
her to pull herself together; feebly to 
lay hold of whatever defensive armor she 
can find against Micky Brand’s pity — 
against the compassion of the barracks. 
By a great effort of will she even forces 
the color to stay in her cheeks — enough 
color, at least, in this kind and shifty fire- 
light, to save her from the imputation of 
any excessive or livid pallor. She curves 
her disobedient lips into a stiff, set smile. 

“ You were all talking so fast ! ” she 
says, in a low, quick voice — (but then her 
voice is always low, never in highest ex- 
citement shrill or clamorous). “I was 
waiting for an opening. What does one 
say when one hears that one’s acquaint- 
ances are going to be married ? — that one 
is very glad ? that one hopes it will turn 
out well ? that one wishes they would 


JOAN. 


143 


send over some wedding-cake ? — I am so 
fond of wedding-cake ! — You are too, are 
not you, Aunt Moberley ? ” 

“ There are worse things ! ” replies 
Mrs. Moberley, tersely; “but — (shaking 
her head) — “they never send cake now, 
I am told! — however” (in more buoyant 
tone), “ perhaps the colonel may make 
an exception in favor of you ; you and he 
were always rather friends, and indeed ’’ 
— (with a little accent of harmless com- 
placence) — “I do not think he disliked 
any of us 1 ” 

“ No, he did not dislike any of us ! ” 
repeats Joan, in a mechanical parrot-tone. 

“ I wonder now,” continues Mrs. Mo- 
berley in a voice of brisk and alert inter- 
est, “ whether it is in the Helmsley paper 
this week I — the Courier gets hold of any- 
thing wonderfully soon. — Diana, run and 
ask whether the Courier has come yet.” 

“May Joan go instead of me?” asks 
Diana, hastily, and reddening again; “I 
— I — I am afraid of the draughts for my 
cold ! ” 

"With a feeling of vague, blunt .gratitude 
Joan rises and walks steadily to the door. 
Once outside it, she reels and staggers 
against the wall. The sickly gas-jet is 
multiplied to a hundred, which all seem 
to be dancing and flaring round her. Is 
she going to faint? What! fall down, 
and cause them all to come running out 
and And her swooned, and to guess, not 
obscurely, the cause ? She will die flrst ! 
She totters to the stairs, and, holding 
tightly to the banisters, slowly climbs to 
the upper story. 

In her own garret she will at least find 
solitude and darkness. But will she? 
As she opens the door, a light strikes 
upon her dismayed eyes, the light of a 
tallow-candle set on the floor beside 
Sarah, who, in a bear-like and plantigrade 
attitude, is executing some repairs on the 
veteran drugget. What malign spirit has 
prompted her, to-day of all days, to this 
exercise of unwonted and untimely indus- 
try, who shall say? Joan softly recloses 
the door, with something of the feeling 


with which — we may suppose — a hard- 
run fox finds his earth stopped. Whither 
can she turn? She dare not betake her- 
self to the girls’ room ; at any moment 
they may come flying up-stairs, and find 
her face in the dishabille of its utter de- 
spair. She descends the stairs again, and 
when she has reached the foot her eyes 
fall on the door that leads to the garden. 
In a moment she has opened it — it is 
never locked — and now, hatless, cloakless, 
and protectionless, stands in the wintry 
weather outside. 

The night is pitch dark. It clothes 
her round like a soft, close vesture. Dark 
as it is, she knows so well every inch of 
the little territory, that now, without any 
hesitation or faltering, she makes her way 
between the inky flower-beds — over the 
dark, invisible grass to the sundial. At 
its base she falls down. Her arms encir- 
cle its dark pillar. Her delicate flower- 
face is pressed against the cold and obdu- 
rate stone. At least, on this January 
night, they will not think of seeking her 
here! For some time she lies half un- 
conscious; then, by-and-by, the raw air, 
piercing through her gown and chilling 
her blood officiously, recalls her to life. 

“ Already — already ! ” she says, with 
a moan ; “ it is too soon ! indeed, it is too 
soon! if lie had had any humanity, he 
would have waited a little ! — with a 
whole long life ahead of him — he could 
afford to wait ! ” 

Another interval. After a while she 
sits upright, shuddering a little. The 
nipping wind has brought her back to 
full consciousness, more quickly than any 
cordial could have done. A shiver — half 
of physical cold, half of utter forlorn- 
ness — shakes her slight body from head to 
foot. Her woful head falls forward on 
her knees. This pain is coming to her 
now in all its sharpness ; she has no nar- 
cotic to dull it. 

“ Unstable as water ! ” she says, with 
a groan; then, with a most bitter, heart- 
wrung smile: “Why do I blame him? he 
could not help it ! it was his instinct ! 


144 


JO AK. 


does one blame any animal for following 
its instinct? it was bis way I — and now 
this is his wmy too! — 0 God! why do 
you allow people to have such ways?” 
Another longer pause ; then, in a broken 
voice of utter tenderness : “Oh, my dear, 
I do not blame you! it was my own 
doing ! Great God I are not all the 
things that hurt us most our own doing ? ” 

She is shivering violently, and her 
teeth chatter with the cold; this January 
blast cuts like a knife. She is glad. The 
discomfort of her body mitigates a little 
the misery of her soul. She does not 
know how long^ she has remained thus, 
when a noise rouses her; the sound of 
the front-door opened and again shut; 
footsteps crunching the wet gravel of the 
drive ; the dogs pattering and bow-wow- 
ing after Mr. Brand, to see him well off 
the premises. Probably — nay, certainly, 
their noses will scent her out here, and 
discover her. Prom the inside of the 
house she hears a voice loudly and gayly 
calling: “Joan! Joan! where are you? 
what have you done with the Courier? 
Joan ! Joan ! ” 

She raises herself to her feet. How 
black this night is! when she stretches 
out her hand before her she cannot see 
it ; and yet to-morrow it will be drawn 
away like a veil from the earth’s face ; it 
will be swept away, abolished, blotted 
out. Oh, that she might be abolished, 
blotted out too — this J oan that is all pain ! 
oh that the night would carry her too 
away in the sweep of its ebon skirts ! 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

The enormous winter night has trailed 
its slow length away; the puny winter 
dawn is tardily showing its ash-gray face 
above the horizon. All night Joan has 
been wrestling with her woe ; and, when 
the sickly new sun looks dimly in at her 
frozen window-pane, he finds her palely 
victorious. Victorious, not indeed over 


pain, for that bids to be long-lived ; not 
over love, for that is deathless, but over 
self. All night through she has struggled 
and striven ; all night her meagre pillow 
has been drenched with her hot salt 
tears; all night ugly and maddening 
visions of her dear love with another 
head than hers on his broad breast, with 
other arms than hers laced about his 
neck, float, painted on the canvas of the 
dark, before her streaming eyes. All 
night she has cried out that the cup is 
too bitter — that the knife is too sharp — 
that, whether God or man have done it, 
it is very ill done ; and lo ! when morn- 
ing comes, the cup is emptied to the 
dregs ; the knife is sheathed in her quiv- 
ering heart, and she, with a victor’s wan 
smile, says, “ It is well ! ” 

In very little more than four months, 
he has forgotten and replaced her; he 
that, with such wet gray eyes, with such 
a broken voice, swore that whether on 
Time’s shore, or Eternity’s gray strand, 
his arms would alwmys be outstretched 
to receive her. So be it ! If it is more 
for his well-being and comfort to forget 
than to remember, then this is well done 
too. 

She has poured out all her costliest 
pearls at his feet ; and he — he has tossed 
her a few paltry beads, that broke in the 
handling. What then? They were the 
best he had. And what has true love to 
do with the worth of the loved ? It does 
not weigh out in drachms and scruples; 
so many grains to this virtue ; so many 
to that grace ; it gives bountifully with 
both hands. She has given to him boun- 
tifully with both hands; and what she 
has given she can by no means take back . 

“To love is the great glory, the last 
culture, the highest happiness ; to be 
loved is little in comparison ! ” 

Because God has set her among the 
lonely ones of this earth; those who 
come first in no one’s prayers ; who have 
no stake in the coming generation, would 
she destine him also to this gray doom— 
this parched half-life ? a fate which some- 


JOAN. 


145 


times ennobles and makes more selfless a 
woman, but almost always worsens a 
man! If this be love, then away with 
such love, that is featured like hate! 
Down with it! down with it into the 
dust ! 

“ God keep you, Anthony ! ” she said 
to him, when they kissed each other 
weepingly by the curling moonlit waves. 
“ God keep you, Anthony ! ” she says 
still. 

Yes, God keep him ! in his bliss now, 
as in his pain then — the pain was so short 
and easily physicked ! 

Joan is dressed now. She has been 
standing for five minutes before her 
looking-glass, with a Turkish towel in 
her hand ; trying whether severest fric- 
tion can bring any color that will stay, 
longer than two seconds into her ashy 
cheeks. For indeed the face that the 
glass — the one with the crack across it — 
gives her back, frightens even herself. 
Purple, thickened eyelids, swollen to dou- 
ble their natural size ; dim buried eyes, 
whose very color seems to be washed 
away from iris and pupil ; a little miser- 
able pinched nose, and tremulous blue 
lips. 

“ Since this time yesterday I have 
added ten years to my age,” she says, 
aloud ; “ I might well pass for thirty : at 
this rate, by Saturday, I shall be eighty ; 
and not a well-preserved eighty ei^ier ! ” ‘ 

She smiles bitterly; then, making a 
grim reverence to her o w n image : “Marie 
Antoinette on her way to the scaffold ! ” 
she says ; “is the parallel complete ? has 
my hair turned gray, too ? ” 

She puts her face closer to the decrepit 
mirror, and, lifting the thick sleek hair 
that overlies her milk-white brow, pries 
curiously among its burnished strands. 
No ! grief, that has ravaged her face, has 
passed harmlessly by her love-locks. They 
still look young and happy. 

“ I must sit with my back to the light ! ” 
she says, replacing the Turkish towel on 
its rail in despair. But not even this 
10 


expedient — not even the shabby yellow 
light of a January morning — not even 
the preoccupation of her family, save her 
from the observation that she dreads. 

“I will say, Joan,” remarks Mrs. Mo- 
berley, regarding her niece with that 
steadfastness of stare, that unblenching 
continuity of gaze which it is the triste 
prerogative of near relations to employ 
toAvard each other — “ I will say, Joan, that 
I never saw any one whom hard weather 
suited so ill as it does you ; I could not 
have believed that a healthy English girl 
could be so shriveled up by a few degrees 
of frost ! now, if you had taken my ad- 
vice, and put on flannel waistcoats at the 
beginning of the winter : or, if not flan- 
nel — some people cannot bear the feel of 
flannel next their skin — if not flannel, 
those nice spun silk ones — ” 

“ I should have been quite a fine 
woman by now — rosy and well-nourished 
— a credit to the establishment ! ” inter- 
rupts Joan, with a laugh — areal T)ona fide 
voluntary laugh. She would have laughed 
had she been by herself, with no one to 
look on, at the idea of this new nostrum 
for a love-pain — flannel waistcoats for a 
brokenheart! “No! no!” — (shakingher 
head) — “I am afraid not! I am afraid I 
am a radical constitutional scarecrow ! ” 

“ I declare it looks as if we starved 
you ! ” pursues Mrs. Moberley, fuming, 
and eying with extreme dissatisfaction 
her niece’s languid, willowy figure, and 
small lily-pale face.' 

“Do you think that change of air 
would do me good?” asks Joan, lifting 
her heavy eyes to her aunt’s large and 
disturbed countenance ; “ you know many 
doctors think it a sovereign remedy ! — 
no,. I am not joking; I have been reflect- 
ing that perhaps, after all, I had better 
close Avith the offer, over which I have 
been so long demurring, of that lady in 

shire; the salary is certainly very 

small — almost invisibly so” (with a pale 
smile) — “ and so are the children, it seems; 
probably I shall not be much more than 
a lonne^ but everything must have a be- 


146 


JOAN. 


ginning ; it is a mistake to be too nice, 
and — and — perhaps this air is too keen 
for me ! ” 

“ What ! ” cries Mrs. Moberlej, stop- 
ping dead short in her occupation of softly 
and slowly chafing her spectacle-glasses 
with her pocket-handkerchief— “ what I 
run away just as all these gay doings are 
coming on ? — such doings as, in all proba- 
bility, Helmsley will not see again for 
another five-and- twenty years — not until ” 
(with a laugh) — “not until the next An- 
thony Wolferstan comes of age ! ” 

Joan turns her head away sick and 
shuddering. Her aunt’s words seem to 
have opened a window into Wolferstan’s 
future — a window through which she, 
standing outside in the cold — always out- 
side in the cold— may peep and see his 
unshared felicity, the warm every-day 
human bliss of which she will make no 
smallest part. It is a moment or so before 
she can master her voice. Then she speaks : 

“ It does seem a pity,” she answers, 
tranquilly, “ but you see my year of 
mourning is not ended yet ; I should be 
sorry to go to anything very gay before 
that had expired; so perhaps it is as well 
to be out of the way of temptation.” 

“ Your year of mourning!^'' repeats 
Mrs. Moberley, with a withering empha- 
sis ; “ who ever heard of shutting one’s 
self up a whole year for a grandfather ? 
what more could you do, pray, if he had 
been your husband? — well, well ! ” (in a 
voice which aims at, but misses an indif- 
ferent and impartial candor of tone) ; 
“ well, well ! it is your business, not 
mine ! but I will say that, of late days, 
everything seems to have turned topsy- 
turvy I it is not one here, and one there ; 
but all the gray heads are on the green 
shoulders! when I was your age, there 
would not have been much need to dra- 
gopn me to a ball I ” 

So Joan has her sad will, and girds up 
her loins once more to breast the stormy 
waves of this world’s troublesome sea 
alone. It will be to her probably a harsher, 
rougher world than has been that small. 


slatternly, yet kindly one, to whose ten- 
der mercies she was consigned one yellow 
April evening, now nearly nine months 
ago. And yet to her own heart she says 
that she defies any new nine months to 
bring her such deep and varied pain — 
such pin-pricks of humiliation — such 
sword-thrusts of agony as the last nine 
months have done. By the next post 
she signs herself away into bondage — 
bondage certainly — though what degree 
or manner of bondage she herself hardly 
cares to speculate. Pay pitiful ! position 
menial I So be it. The only thing with 
regard to her new life, that seems to Miss 
Bering of the least account, is, that the 
scene of it should be laid as far as possi- 
ble from the sound of Helmsley church- 
bells. Whither? — nay — any whither, so 
as to be beyond the reach of Anthony’s 
joy-bells. 

It is well that J oan has steeled herself 
not only to hear but to pronounce her 
late lover’s name, without any quiver of 
eyelid, flutter of color, or uncertainty of 
voice ; for, henceforward, for many days, 
that name is seldom absent for five min- 
utes together from one or other of the 
tongues of the Portland Villa household. 
Colonel Wolferstan and his betrothed 
divide between them the honor of form- 
ing the staple of the Moberley talk. Ev- 
ery half-hour now brings some fresh and 
authentic piece of information on the all- 
‘ engrossing topic; and every new half- 
hour contradicts and repudiates its pred- 
ecessor. 

“ The marriage is to take place next 
week ! ” “It is not to take place for six 
months! ” “ The ceremony is to be per- 
formed at Westminster Abbey! ” “ It is 

to be performed at St. George’s, Hanover 
Square ! ” “ It is to be performed by 

special license in their own drawing- 
room ! ” “ There are to be six brides- 

maids in veils and wreaths!” “There 
are to be twelve bridesmaids in bonnets ! ” 
“There are to be no bridesmaids at all! ” 
“ The young couple are to live with the 
old people at the Abbey 1 ” “ The young 


JO AIT. 


147 


couple are to build a house for themselves 

on the Wolferstan estate in shire! ” 

“The young couple are to travel for a 
year 1 ” “He has been in love with her 
for ten years!” “ They were betrothed 
in their cradles!” “They met for the 
first time last autumn ! ” etc,, etc. 

By-and-by these rumors become both 
fewer and more harmonious. They con- 
tract and shrink into the following com- 
pact body of certainties : 

The marriage is to take place in a 
fortnight, the ceremony is to be per- 
formed at St. James’s, Piccadilly. One 
right reverend, one venerable, and two 
reverends, are to tie the knot. The wed- 
ding-feast is to be held at the family resi- 
dence in Dover Street. Beeves are to 
die and ale-casks to be broached for the 
regaling of the day-laborers and cotters 
on the Wolferstan estate on the w'edding- 
day ; but all such festivities as regard the 
gentry, tradespeople, and farmers, are to 
be reserved till the return of the wedded 
lovers from their honey-moon. 

Is not there food enough here for 
speculation, for hope, for Joy ? The days 
fly past — Joan counts them as they go. 
There is neither pleasure nor profit in 
them, yet would she fain weight them 
with lead. To every setting sun she bids 
good-by with a sicker heart. On every 
tardy dawn she opens • more unwilling 
eyes. The church-bells have already be- 
gun to practise their peals ; every even- 
ing she can hear the riugers perfecting 
themselves in their carillons. 

It is the eve of the wedding now. All 
day the rain has streamed down upon 
the sloppy earth ; all Nature is of the 
consistency of porridge. Rain pure and 
simple, rain mixed with sleet, rain pure 
and simple again. Joan has longed with 
an unutterable longing for fresh air, for 
solitude, for the sea — the wrath y, mas- 
terful, winter sea — 

“ For her heart was heavy — oh I 
Heavy was her heart ! ” 

But all three are equally unattainable. 
The short, dwarfed day is drawing in now, 


and she stands by the window looking 
toward the west. The sun, hidden all 
day, is giving one puny shadow of a good- 
night smile before sinking into his gray 
billow-bed ; the sun which, when next 
he waxes, will shine upon Anthony’s nup- 
tial pomp. Mrs. Moberley has drawn up 
her chair to the window, too, to make the 
most of the waning light, and, with spec- 
tacles astride on her nose, is reading aloud, 
in short-winded recitative, the Helmsley 
paper, which has just arrived : 

“‘For the information of our fair 
readers we may state that the bride’s 
dress will be of white satin trimmed with 
Brussels lace. The bridesmaids will be 
the Lady Alicia Kerr and the Lady Mabel 
Kerr, cousins of the bridegroom, and the 
Honorable Letitia Wentworth and the 
Honorable Susan Wentworth, cousins of 
the bride. We understand that the 
bridesmaids’ dresses will be of white 
'poult de soie^ polonaises of white damas- 
se, trimmed with white ostrich-feathers, 
white Rubens felt hats trimmed with os- 
trich-feathers. The bridegroom’s best 
man will be his brother, Mr. Fulke Wol- 
ferstan ! ’ And then come the presents. 
Dear me ! three columns of them. Why, 
there must be over two hundred! ” 

“ Are there many Helmsley names ? ” 
asks Bell, looking over her mother’s 
shoulder at the list of donors; “I wish 
that we had given something — any trifle 
just to show good-will — and people will 
be sure to look for our names ; knowing 
on w^hat intimate terms we were with 
him.” 

“ How badly they print these things 
nowadays ! ” says Mrs. Moberley, hold- 
ing the paper at arm’s length and staring 
hard at it through her spectacles. — “ Here, 
Joan, you are doing nothing — your eyes 
are younger than mine — read us aloud 
the list of the presents ! ” 

Joan turns heavily away from the 
window, and, taking the paper from her 
aunt’s hand, complies : 

“ ‘ The Marchioness of Caledon, brace- 
let, gold and pearl ; the Countess of Dor- 


148 


JOAN. 


set, 'parure^ emeralds and diamonds ; the 
Honorable Lady Landon, pendant, opals 
and diamonds,’ ” and so on for three col- 
umns. They swim before her eyes now 
and then — the pendants, the tiaras, the 
chatelaines, the Huis — but she holds out 
gallantly till the end, till the tale, begun 
so gloriously with a marchioness and a 
bracelet, dwindles away into a miss and 
a blotting-book. 

“ What a number of great people they 
seem to know ! ” says Mrs. Moberley, in 
a respectful voice ; “ and I am sure that 
you would never guess it from Anthony’s 
conversation. I do not think I ever 
heard him mention a member of the 
peerage in my life ! ” 

“ What a number of bracelets ! ” cries 
Bell, with an envious sigh. “ How many, 
Joan? Count!” 

Joan complies. 

“ There are twenty-one ! ” 

“ She may put on a fresh one every 
day for three weeks I ” says Bell, with 
the rapidity of a ready-reckoner. “ What 
luck some people have ! ” 

“ And how many lockets, Joan ? ” asks 
Diana, leaning her elbows on the table, 
and framing her little eager, rosy face 
with her dimpled hands. 

Joan’s slender finger travels up the 
column once again. 

“ There are fourteen! ” 

“ She may put on a new one every 
day for a fortnight ! ” says Diana, 
drawing a long breath; “and then they 
tell you that happiness is equally di- 
vided ! ” 

“ But has the bridegroom given noth- 
ing? ” asks Bell, curiosity, for the mo- 
ment, getting the better of envy ; “ are 
you sure that you have missed nothing, 
Joan? he must surely have contributed 
something handsome ! ” 

“Has not he contributed himself?” 
asks Mrs. Moberley, with a jolly laugh ; 
“ I do not think that he could well have 
contributed anything handsomer ! I sup- 
pose he thinks that that is enough ! ” 

Joan lays down the paper, shivering 


a little. Enough?— yes, enough in all 
conscience ! 

Wolferstan’s wedding-day has come. 
No longer coming^ it has come. It is here. 
No more need Joan’s eyes grudgingly 
watch the breaking of each new dawn ; 
no more need her sad wishes try to delay 
the fall of each new night. Dread is no 
more, for the dreaded has arfived. And 
Joan is still at Portland Yilla. Fate, 
after all, will not spare her the hearing 
of Anthony’s wedding-chimes. At the 
last moment her employer has put her 
off, intimating that she will not require 
her to enter upon her duties till after the 
expiration of another month. So Joan 
stays. 

In the relations between masters and 
servants, it is the servants who can dic- 
tate terms, and the masters who must 
come into them. Nowadays, he or she 
who neglects to obey his or her cook’s 
lightest whim, may, in all likelihood, go 
cookless to the end of the chapter ; but 
in the education - market matters are 
widely different. In the latter the sup- 
ply is as immensely in excess of the de- 
mand as in the former the demand is in 
excess of the supply. 

Anthony’s wedding-day has come. 
Neither God nor man has stepped in to 
prevent it ; and the sun, which for a 
fortnight past has shone for neither king 
nor tinker, shines for him. The sun and 
Anthony were always friends. Almost 
all Joan’s recollections of him are mixed 
with fair weather and sunshine. She 
has opened her window that looks to the 
dim-red east. She herself has sunk down 
on her knees beside the poor bed, with 
arms outflung over the worn counter- 
pane and ruffled brown head down sunk 
upon them. 

“ Oh, love ! love ! ” she says, with an 
exceeding bitter cry ; “ God give you 
fair weather always ! God save you from 
pain like this ! God lift you to the higher 
life ! ” 

The tears rush in hot salt plenty to 


JOAN. 


149 


her eyes, but she commands them back. 
To-day of all days, God wot, she must be 
dry-eyed and merry. Throughout the 
morning an electrical river of excitement 
seems to be running in the Moberleys’ 
veins. Employment of any sort seems 
impossible to them, nor do they attempt 
any. With eyes turned alternately to 
the clock, and to the prayer-books opened 
at the marriage-service, on their laps, 
Mrs. Moberley and Bell (for Diana is, for 
the most part, quiescent) follow the bri- 
dal party step by step, through the pro- 
grammaginnounced by the Helmsley jour- 
nal. ^ 

“ They must have reached the church 
by now. Bell! — how many carriages, I 
wonder ? nearly all private ones, I dare 
say ? ” 

“ They must be arranged before the 
altar now ; I hope the bridegroom has 
not forgotten the ring.” 

“ As likely as not this very minute 
she is saying, ‘ I will ; ’ I hope she speaks 
up — I do like a bride to speak up.” 

“ I can almost hear him say, ‘ I, An- 
thony, take thee, Lalage I ’ Dear me ! 
what lovely names 1 — and they go so well 
together.” After a while : “ We ought 
to hear the bells soon ! they were to tel- 
egraph down the moment it was over, so 
that they might strike up here at once ! ’ 

Bell has opened the window in order 
the better to hear. The crisp air comes 
in with a cold rush, but who can be cold 
to-day ? 

“ It is one o’clock ! ” cries Bell, with 
a lengthening face ; “I cannot account 
for it! — can anything have happened — 
anything at the last moment to prevent 
it?” 

At her words Joan’s sick heart gives 
a great bound ; and the foolish carnation 
color rushes to her lily cheeks. Is it just 
possible ? — it is not likely — nothing is less 
likely — but still such things have hap- 
pened! As she so thinks, pushing away 
and yet involuntarily fostering the ex- 
quisite mad hope, the listeners’ strained 
ears are suddenly smitten by a sharp and 


merry noise ; and, in a moment, the whole 
air is full of the clangor of a resonant 
din : all the joy-bells from the three 
church-towers shaking out their trium- 
phant music — that, when most joyous, is 
yet sad — on the ready wind. 

“ It is all right ! ” cries Bell, in a tone 
of rapturous relief, drawing a long breath; 
“ I declare the suspense was beginning to 
make me feel quite hysterical ! ” 

“It is a faitaccomply P' says Mrs. 
Mqberley, solemnly, making one long Eng- 
lish word out of the two French ones; 
“ Anthony is a married man ! — not all the 
king’s horses and all the king’s men can 
set Humpty Dumpty up again ! — Why, 
Joan, though you kept so quiet, I believe 
you were as excited as any of ns ; why, 
child, you are as white as a sheet! ” 

“ Am I not always white ? ” asks Joan, 
in a tone of angry and impatient agony, 
for indeed her cup is over - full ; “ O 
Aunt Moberley, if you would but make 
up your mind that I am always white ! ” 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

Thus Wolferstan is wed. The Helms- 
ley Courier devotes three columns to the 
describing of his and his wife’s deport- 
ment on the occasion ; of how they were 
clad, who wed them, and who looked on. 
The Morning Post^ the Court Journal^ 
and half a dozen other papers, have also 
each and all something to say on this sub- 
ject; and all these notices Joan has to 
read aloud to her aunt, and does so read 
them, with an unfaltering voice, and, 
where it appears seemly and probable 
that she should do so, makes comments 
on them. But the wedding is now de- 
posed from its supremacy of interest. The 
past has ever few courtiers in comparison 
with the future. The honey-moon is 
drawing toward its close, and Joan is still 
at Portland Villa. Each- day her hope 
of escaping before the dreaded epoch of 
Wolferstan’s return has grown more sick- 


150 


JOAN. 


ly; now it is dead. She has heard his 
wedding - hells. For days after they 
ceased pealing she hears them still. Some- 
times she hears them now at the deadest 
hour of night deafening her ears. She 
has heard, and now Fate wills that she 
shall also see. 

The day finally decided upon for her 
departure is — oh, irony of destiny I — the 
one after that fixed for the bride-people’s 
return, and the fancy ball which is to grace 
it, instead of, as she had ardently prayed, 
the one before. Our eye speaks much 
more loudly and distinctly to us than 
does our ear. It seems to Joan that what 
she has already endured is as nothing com- 
pared with what she wiU suSer when see- 
ing with bodily eyes that felicity of which 
she yet already knows. 

The honey-moon nears its end ; it is 
to be literally only a moon. The young 
people are to be allowed no margin ; they 
are to be strictly tied down to their four 
weeks, at the end of which time they are 
to make their triumphant entry into their 
paternal home. They are to be dragged 
from the station by their tenants (oh, 
most trist and humiliating of compli- 
ments ! the apprehension of which must, 
I think, deter many an eldest son from 
marrying, or, at least, from ever bringing 
home his bride). Flags are to wave for 
them, arches are to tower above them, 
party-colored poles to rise to their glory, 
and in the evening the Abbey-doors are to 
be thrown wide open to admit so great a 
crowd as even its wide rooms will scarce- 
ly contain ; a crowd embracing everything 
with the slenderest claims to gentility in 
all the country round, and in Helmsley 
itself. 

“A regular popularity affair,” says 
Mrs. Moberley, with a slightly discontent- 
ed accent. “ A sort of thing that it is 
no kind of compliment to be asked to! 
everybody is asked — hightums, tightums, 
scrubs ! ” 

“Scrubs, at all events, we will hope,” 
says Diana, with a dry smile, “ else our 
chance is but small.” 


It is nearing rapidly now. Every mil- 
liner and seamstress in Helmsley is work- 
ing double tides ; for this is no common 
ball, for which the purchase of a few yards 
of tulle or tarlatan will fit you, but a 
fancy ball — rigorously fancy, to which 
you must come travestied, or not come 
at all. The problem which is employing 
the brains of all Helmsley — the maximum 
of magnificence and originality withr the 
minimum of expense — is taxing the wits 
of the artless family at Portland Villa, 
perhaps more severely than any other in 
the country-side. ^ 

In the case of Arabella, inde^, there 
is no difficulty. It has not taken her two 
seconds to decide upon the character she 
will personate. She will be a mtandUre^ 
and is already reveling, by anticipation, 
in the glories of her warlike jacket, pert 
cap, and little barrel. For one evening 
she may be almost mistaken for a soldier. 
Diana’s heart has at first seriously leaned 
toward a like costume, but out of this in- 
clination Joan ffas succeeded in coaxing 
her. 

“ They do not admit uniforms! ” says 
Micky, in a grumbling tone, as he sits 
sucking the top of his stick and staring 
into the fire. “ A great mistake ; a uni- 
form goes levery where.” 

“ You can easily evade it by going as 
a boiled lobster,” cries Diana, with levity, 
but Mr. Brand does not laugh. 

“ I thought of going as the master of 
Eavenswood,” he continues, in a com- 
plaining tone — “a very effective dress, I 
am told ; but there is a rumor that Wol- 
f erstan himself has adopted it. It would 
not do to clash, with the bridegroom, I 
suppose, so now I am at sea again.” 

“ Shake hands, then,” says Mrs. Mo- 
berley, holding out a plump hand across 
the hearth to him, “for so am I. “We 
have all been racking our brains to find 
some character that will suit a stout fig- 
ure. There must have been stout people 
in the world before me ” (laughing) — 
“ but we cannot, for the life of us, think 
of any.” 


JOAN. 


151 


“I shall be Mother Hubbard,” cries 
Diana, gaylj, sitting down on the hearth- 
rug, and drawing Mr. Brown toward her, 
Mr. Brown half asleep, and, consequently, 
rather short in the temper — “ I shall be 
Mother Hubbard, and Mr. Brown shall be 
my dog ! — Do you hear, Joan? Mr. Brown 
is going to the fancy ball as Mother Hub- 
bard’s dog, so please make a suit of 
clothes for him at once.” 

“The Black Prince! the Douglas! 
Coeur de Lion ! ” says Micky, over, in a 
monotonous undertone to himself, as his 
eye still tries to wrest some inspiration 
from the fire’s heart. “I have a good 
mind to be Ooeur de Lion — I do not think 
that there will be another — I shall be the 
only one.” 

“Why need you be a king or a big- 
wig of any kind ? ” asks Diana, bluntly, 
still framing with her hands Mr. Brown’s 
deeply unwilling face, and bringing his 
wrinkles into unnatural and monstrous 
prominence. “ Why cannot you be some- 
thing ridiculous ? It would be so much 
more amusing! I always like the idea 
of the clergyman who went to a fancy 
ball in full canonicals, with his curate 
after him as Beelzebub. You are not a 
curate, but why should not you be Beel- 
zebub ? ’’ 

But this suggestion finds no manner 
of favor in Mr. Brand’s eyes. 

Indecision is at an end now, at all 
events. Last stitches are being set, cos- 
tumes tremblingly tried on and final alter- 
ations made — for the fateful day has 
come. The arches are complete to the 
last leaf — shining evergreen and varnished 
holly — they stride across street and road. 
The show school-child has been armed 
witli her bouquet. The big cardboard 
“Welcomes!” and “ Health and Happi- 
nesses ! ” have all been pasted on their 
red cloth, and set up over the lodge-gates 
to give their staring greeting. The train 
by which the bridal couple are to arrive 
reaches Helmsley at 2 p. m. Long before 
that hour the Misses Moberley, under the 


escort of Micky, have set off for the town, 
so as to be in ample time to witness the 
expected entry. 

From this ordeal Joan is saved by an 
unexpected stroke of luck. Fate, unkind 
so long, is kind at last, and sends her a 
heavy, unmistakable cold — a cold about 
which there is no malingering, and in 
which the most skeptical cannot refuse 
to believe. T*erhaps she is not very much 
the gainer, after all. She will not thereby 
escape the sight of Anthony, for does 
not the cortege pass the very gate of 
Portland Yilla? and to refuse to look out 
at it would be at once to confess that 
very secret which she has been guarding 
so long, so jealously, and with such infi- 
nite pains. 

Mrs. Moberley and Joan remained be- 
hind, but though her daughters have gone 
and she has staid, yet is Mrs. Mober- 
ley’s excitement no whit inferior to theirs. 
She is up and down twenty times in a 
minute, from door to window, from win- 
dow to door, and when the hour draws 
nigh at which the cortege may reasonably 
be expected to appear — she even goes a 
step farther, and passes out into the road, 
where she stands, with hand shading her 
eyes, while the winter wind coldly frolics 
with her cap-lappets — gazing eagerly at 
the turn of the road which is to give to 
view the desired equipage. But, gaze as 
she may, no such equipage appears. The 
time goes by, and Mrs. Mobeiiey’s hopes 
decline through the several degrees of 
confident expectation and doubt, till, at 
last, they reach the nadir of despair. 

“ There must have been an accident ! ” 
she says, while her jovial round face pales 
and lengthens. “I declare I am quite 
upset — there must have been an accident 
to the train ! ” 

“ Joan is trembling all over like a leaf. 
The strain all the morning has been al- 
most more than she can bear. The ne- 
cessity for making light, cheerful, and in- 
terested answers to her aunt’s foolish 
and incessant questions and ejaculations 
has tried her strength to its very outside 


152 


JO AJT. 


limit. By this time she can no longer 
manage her voice, and “I hope not^ 
I hope not!” in a very low key, is all she 
can say. 

By-and-hy, the girls coming hustling 
in again, with faces reddened by exercise 
and triumph, brimming over with spirits 
and excitement, sufficiently prove that 
there has been no catastrophe or contre- 
temps. They are both talking at. once, 
and at the very top of their voices ; but 
Bell’s, being the stronger organ, drowns 
and effaces her sister’s weaker one. 

“We had the best possible view I ” 
she cries, exultantly ; “ I could not have 
wished for a better; I was as close to 
them as I am to you ; I could have pul 
out my hand and touched the carriage ; 
the town was so gay — you would not 
have known it— flags out of every win- 
dow — quite like fairy-land! ” 

She stops for a moment, out of breath ; 
but instantly resumes — afraid, perhaps, 
of Diana’s usurping the speakership : 

“ The carriage came along High Street 
at a foot’s pace, and there they were 
bowing right and left, quite like roy- 
alty ! ” 


“They, indeed! ” cries Diana, ironi- 
cally; was waggling her head like 

a mandarin, it is true ; but Tie — he scarce- 
ly stirred, except to take off his hat to 
one or two people that he knew ! He 
leaned back, looking as white as death, 
and with his hat pulled down over his 
eyes ! ” 


“ But why did not they come past 
here ? ” inquires Mrs. Moberley, raising 
her voice, resolute to outscream her 
daughters, and have her question an- 
swered at any price ; “ they have never 
passed by us at all — have they, Joan ? I 
never was so disappointed in my life ! no 
more was Joan ! ” 

Arabella shrugs her shoulders. “ It 
was a whim of his ! nobody could ac- 
count for it ; he would have them go to 
the West Lodge instead: it put the peo- 
ple out a good deal, as it is half a mile 
farther out of the way ; and, of course. 


as they were not expected, there were 
no arches or anything there; but he 
would have it so! I cannot think what 
possessed him 1 ” 

“Dear me! how odd!” says Mrs. 
Moberley, in a tone of curious reflection ; 
“I hope that there is nothing wrong 
about his head ! I hope he is not going 
like his father, poor old gentleman! ” 

Joan has turned away to the window ; 
her heart beating hard and quick. It is 
contracted by an agony of pain, that is 
yet tinged by a most bitter joy. lie has 
at least enough feeling for her left to 
make him unwilling to display his new 
felicity right under her aching eyes. 

The evening has come now ; the even- 
ing, whose closing in has been so eagerly 
watched. The hour at which the Abbey- 
doors are to be thrown open has arrived ; 
the guests are flocking in. Already the 
road is full of carriages — carriages going 
— carriages returning. Gayly their red 
lamps shine through the black night. 
The Moberleys are in the very act of de- 
parture. For ten minutes Joan has been 
on her knees ; putting in last stitches, 
and important pins, and doing crowning 
acts of embellishment ; whispering also 
hopes, and soothing misgivings where 
there are any to be soothed. In Miss 
Moberley’s case there are none. Fully 
equipped in scarlet jacket, gold-lace, and 
short petticoats ; with her barrel on her 
back, and her cap set well on one side 
upon her large head, she is enjoying such 
a happy confidence that she is represent- 
ing the character she has undertaken to 
personate with glory and fidelity, that 
no adverse criticisms — were any such 
forthcoming — could have power to move 
her from her blest complacence. But Di- 
ana, as Bo-peep, is reveling in no such 
resolute self-satisfaction. She has been 
unable to enact the part of Mother Hub- 
bard, after all ; as, at the last moment, 
Mr. Brown refuses to appear before the 
world as Mother Hubbard’s dog. She 
has, therefore, at Joan’s persuasion, cho- 
sen the part of Bo-peep instead. 


JO AIT. 


153 


At the present moment, Joan is stand- 
ing beside her cousin, firmly fastening on 
her blond head a dainty straw hat, cun- 
ningly rose-wreathed ; such a hat as tra- 
dition has always connected with the 
memory of the lady who lost her sheep. 
Joan, indeed, is eying the whole of Bo- 
peep with something of a parent’s or 
creator’s pride; for is not the hat — are 
not the cherry-colored petticoat and the 
flowered chintz sacque — the work of her 
own fingers and brains? 

“ There 1 ” she cries, in a voice of soft 
and kindly triumph; “I defy any Bo- 
peep to beat mine ! Come and look at 
yourself, Di I ” She leads the shy, pleased 
girl before the glass, and they stand side 
by side with the eyes of both fixed upon 
Diana’s image; the tall, pale royal lily, 
and the little blushing hedge-rose. 

Joan has spoken truth. Any impos- 
ing or pretentious costume — La Vali!?re, 
Marquise, Marie Stuart — would have 
crushed Diana into insignificance ; but, as 
little Bo-peep, with great shy eyes, with 
round pink-velvet cheeks, dewy red lips, 
and a woolly lamb, that on extreme press- 
ure, gives utterance to real “ Baas,” un- 
der her arm, she is charming. As to the 
lamb, that spurious animal has filled the 
breasts of the dogs with feelings of alter- 
nate amazement, bitter indignation, and 
awe. 

Mrs. Moberley has finally decided 
upon the character of the Queen of She- 
ba ; a character which gives indeed an 
idea of vague magnificence, but ties one 
down to no minutiaa of detail. The 
Queen of Sheba was undoubtedly hand- 
somely dressed ; and it is also equally be- 
yond doubt that, at this distance of time, 
it is impossible to reconstruct her costume 
with any attempt at accuracy. She may 
have worn a red-velvet gown, something 
tight for her queenly charms, and a 
large blond cap variously flowered, and 
whence a bird-of-paradise plume — gener- 
ously lent by Diana for the occasion — 
waves superb but irrelevant. She may 
and she may not. History is silent. 


Miqjiy Brand — he is to escort them or 
“ beau” them, as Mrs. Moberley words it 
— has kept to his last-expressed inten- 
tion ; and, five minutes ago, entered the 
room — no longer as Micky Brand of the 
170 th foot — but as the dauntless Plantag- 
enet — Eichard of the Lion Heart : a gilt 
and pasteboard crown, majestic but inse- 
cure, since it 'will veer to one side, binds 
his brows : enormous white-cotton stock- 
ings case and define his stout limbs from 
ankle to waist: a regal mantle of cotton 
velvet drapes his person, and three large 
gold lions ramp mightily up his broad 
back. 

They are off now ; the Queen of She- 
ba, Coeur de Lion, vivandiere^ and Bo- 
peep. Joan has seen and heard the last 
of them ; the last of Diana, driving the 
dogs to a final frenzy of wrathful curios- 
ity, by making her lamb give one last im- 
probable, unlamblike squeak; of Plan- 
tagenet, cursing and resettling his dia- 
dem, which he has inadvertently bumped 
against the fly-roof; of the Queen of 
Sheba, screaming out some last, forgotten 
directions, to keep the fire up, and not 
let the dogs get to the cold meat ! 


CHAPTER XXXIH. 

They are gone now ; and Joan, hav- 
ing shut the door after them, reenters the 
empty drawing-room, and, having stirred 
the fire from red repose into cheerful ac- 
tivity, stands leaning one elbow on the 
chimney-piece, and poising one foot on 
the warm fender. Her reflections begin 
with a laugh. She laughs out loud at the 
recollection of the back view of Coeur de 
Lion arming the Queen of Sheba down 
the narrow passage; and of the care 
with which he tucked his lions under him 
in the fly. She may laugh as loud as she 
pleases, or weep, or shout, or whoop, or 
make any other vociferous noise for 
which she feels inclined ; for there is not 
a single soul in the house to hear her. 


154 


JOAN. 


Besides the dogs, there is no living creat- 
lire within the walls but herself. The 
servants are every one gone to see the 
ball. Joan has resolutely declined to 
stand in the way of the pleasure of any 
one of them, and has expressed her en- 
tire willingness to keep house for one 
night, alone. 

After all, what danger is there ? At 
the most favorable time Portland Villa 
does not give the idea of an abode that 
would very richly reward a burglarious 
attempt ; and to-night of all nights, with 
the whole neighborhood awake and astir 
— with the road full of carriages, voices, 
people — there is, if possible, less peril than 
ever. The hall-door is locked and chained. 
The garden-door, it is true, is neither ; for 
the excellent reason that the lock, like 
most things at Portland Villa, is broken ; 
but who would think of choosing that 
mode of entry ? 

Fear is certainly the last emotion that 
is in Miss Bering’s thoughts, as, abandon- 
ing her standing posture, she sinks into 
Mrs. Moberley’s arm-chair and plunges 
herself into reflection. The fire is warm 
and soothing, and the chair fairly com- 
fortable ; yet she feels no inclination for 
sleep. Her mind is too alert and astir. 
To-morrow opens a new chapter of her 
history; to-morrow she travels away to 
her new home. But the future engages 
her but little. There will be no pleasure 
in it, and it is useless to go prematurely 
to meet pain. Suffering there will un- 
doubtedly be ; but, if the same in degree, 
it will at least be different in kind from 
that which she has, of late, been enduring. 
At least this weary double life will be at 
an end ; this outside cheerfulness and in- 
ward desolation, these outside smiles and 
inward tears. If her spirits droop now, 
none will ask wdiy ; if she is silent, no one 
will offer her a penny for her thoughts ; 
as has ever been the officious and tyran- 
nical custom at Portland Villa. 

But it is the past and the present that 
chiefly form the matter of her medita- 
tions ; the past, over which now a steady 


glory of broad even sunshine seems to 
have settled down, though at the time 
many a traveling cloud darkened the land- 
scape — many a shower wetted it ; but now 
— in her heart it is laid up all in pure gold. 
A past that seems to have been made up 
all of Anthony! — either of happily ex- 
pecting Anthony, of joyfully holding him 
company, of of softly recollecting him. 
And the present. After all, the present 
binds us with stronger chains than does 
either his dead brother or his unborn one. 
Longer — far longer than did either the 
past or the future, the now holds her in 
its bitter clasp. After all, she might as 
well have gone to the ball; for, almost 
as plainly as if she were there, does she 
hear the merry band — the musicians — 
scraping, squeaking, twanging. Almost 
as distinctly as if she were whirling with 
them does she see the incongruous gay 
croVd, whirling, flying, jostling, prancing, 
shambling round; and above the lower 
throng she sees, too, her love’s high head 
— that head that neither grief nor shame 
has ever bowed — held well aloft; she sees 
the flashing of his broad proud eye, and 
the good-humor of his sunshiny smile. 
She closes her eyes the better to see him. 

The night is wearing on apace. A 
while ago the hospital-clock’s staid voice 
told the hour of one. It must be half an 
hour since she took the dogs to bed in 
the kitchen, since she saw them all turn 
an innumerable number of unnecessary 
times before finally snuggling comforta- 
bly, nose to tail, each in his separate bas- 
ket. She has kissed each of their baggy 
black cheeks — Mr. Brown’s last as being 
dearest — and has returned to the draw- 
ing-room. 

As she passed the unshuttered passage 
window, she looked out. A mirk Winter 
night, though it is mid-February, and 
snowing bard. Poor coachmen I poor 
horses ! The gas is out : nor is there any 
light in the drawing-room but what the 
fire gives ; and it is not at a blazing, active 
stage, but has sunk to a sleepy, passive red 
rest. She is leaning forward now in her 




JO AX. 


155 


chair with hands spread toward the 
warmth, and eyes idly gazing at the odd 
little fire-hills, fire-valleys, fire-gulfs be- 
fore her, when her ear is suddenly hit by 
a small but certain noise. The road out- 
side is, for a while, almost as quiet as on 
an ordinary night ; for all the guests have 
long arrived, and none have yet begun to 
depart. One grows very familiar with the 
noises of a house in which one has spent 
nine months; one can distinguish with 
nicety between the tones of voice of each 
bell, each door-hinge, each door-handle. 
Were it not so grossly improbable — were 
it mid-day instead of midnight, she would 
say that that noise was made by the lift- 
ing of the latch of the garden-door. 

“ It is impossible ! ” she says to herself 
chidingly ; “who were ever known to sit 
by themselves at dead of night, without 
hearing some unexplained sound to set 
their nerves tingling ? ” 

But all the same, her whole soul and 
life seem to have suddenly passed into her 
ears. And they have not deceived her. 
There is no mistake now ; there is the 
undeniable sound of a step in the passage 
outside — a step which, on reaching the 
drawing-room door, has paused. Outside 
that door there is an unknown, unshaped 
something ; and with that something she 
is tete-d-tete. 

Too terrified to change her position by 
one hair’s-breadth, she sits ; still holding 
her hands to the fire with wide eyes, tense- 
ly-strained ears, and a heart that seems as 
if it would leap through her gown. As 
she so paralyzedly sits, the door opens 
softly — opens — opens — (oh, if it would 
but open more quickly!) — and in the 
aperture appears, indistinctly seen, fire- 
light-freaked and shadow-blurred, the 
figure of a tall man, huddled in a cloak ; 
the figure — and also the face ! But whose 
face ? Great God ! is she awake ? it is 
Wolferstan’s ! At first she has no other 
thought than that either it is one of those 
solid-seeming and vivid optical delusions 
which sometimes, even in broad daylight, 
have been known to mislead people of 


clear heads and sound wits, or that it is 
his wraith — his double — which she, by 
eager and continuous thinking of him, 
has evoked. 

But as he advances farther into the 
room; as she hears his footsteps, sub- 
stantial and real ; as the fire, giving one 
sudden up-leap, as if it, too, were aston- 
ied, plays upon his face — she realizes 
that it is indeed Anthony ! But what, 
in Heaven’s name, is he doing here ? 
Has he lost his wits ? And is this the 
brave, gay bridegroom that she has been 
imaging — this slouching man ; with snow- 
flakes lying thickly on shoulders and hair; 
with miserable gray eyes sullen and sunk, 
and hollow, pale cheeks — that is gazing 
at her with such a dumb fixity ? 

She has sprung to her feet, now that 
the spell of the unknown and the super- 
natural no longer binds her ; and, retreat- 
ing a step or two, stands grasping con- 
vulsively the back of a chair to steady 
herself. In utter dumbness they stand 
staring at each other for a hundred pulse- 
beats. 

Joan could not speak if you were to 
promise her a kingdom for each word ! 
But, though she cannot speak, she stretches 
out hen trembling right hand, and, with a 
wordless gesture, motions to the door, 
bidding him depart. 

“ What ! ” he says, in a hoarse whis- 
per; “you will not speak to me! you 
wave me silently away, as if I were a too 
importunate beggar ! ” 

His words seemed to give her back, in 
some degree, the power of speech. 

“ What is this ? ” she says, in a low, 
uncertain voice, full of horror and pain ; 
“ have you lost your wits ? What brings 
you here ? ” 

“ What brings me here ? ” he repeats, 
slowly, putting his hand to his head with 
a dazed gesture. “ I — I — do not know ! 
— I had no thought of coming! They 
told me that you were all alone here — all 
alone ! but I did not mean to come ! My 
only thought was to get away from the 
sound of those fiddles ! — they were driv- 


156 


JOAN. 


ing me mad as fast as they could I 1 am 
not mad now, thougli you look at me as 
if I were — I am as sane as you are. My 
only thougLit was to get away into the 
good, cold outside air, and once there, my 
feet of their own accord, without my 
will, carried me along the old path they 
know so well — the old path, over the 
fields, through the garden by the sundial 
— and — and— I am here.” 

His words come slowly, draggingly, 
with many a pause and gap between, as 
the words of one that speaks, scarcely 
knowing what he says. 

Again there is silence ; and still they 
two stand gazing blankly across the red 
fire-glow into the agony of each other’s 
eyes. After a while Anthony speaks in 
a vibrating, rough voice : 

“ Joan! ” he says, “you set up a bar- 
rier between us — an imaginary one that 
a breath could blow away ! — and I — I 
have set up a real one, such as in all our 
lives neither you nor I will ever be able 
to overleap ! ” 

She answers nothing. Before her blue 
eyes there has come a dimness. In her 
brain there is an odd, noisy whirl and 
jumble. She hears his speech indeed, 
sounding strange and muflied, but she can 
give him back none. 

“ Do you ask why I did it ? ” he goes 
on, in a distincter, louder tone. “ You do 
not know why? Well, then” (with a 
wild laugh), “ we are equal, for, as I live, 
neither do I ! When you sent me away, 
why did I go? — why did I go?” (in a 
tone of the most poignant self-reproach). 
“I should have clung about your knees — 
I should have tormented you with my im- 
portunities — I should never have let you 
out of my arms — till I had wrung from 
you that ‘ yes ’ that would have been the 
salvation of us both! Well, wlien you 
sent me away, I fell almost immediately 
into her company. The God above us 
knows that I did not seek it — that it was 
thrust upon me ! — into her familiar, inti- 
mate society ! You know the old story ; 
you know the sort of power that she al- 


ways had over me — the domination ovci* 
all that is base in me — Heaven knows 
there is enough ! — before I well knew it I 
had drifted into this ! ” (his voice sinking 
to a whisper of angry despair, while he 
brings his clinched hand heavily down 
on the table). “ Honor, that is god- 
father to half the dishonorable actions in 
the world, had manacled me for life, had 
made a liar and a traitor of me ! ” He 
has thrown himself into a chair, and, 
flinging his arms down upon the table, 
has sunk his head upon them — the sun- 
shiny brown head that a few minutes 
ago she had been picturing to herself as 
held so gayly and proudly aloft. After 
a while he looks up again. “ Joan ! ” he 
says, with a sort of hard, dry sob in his 
voice — “Joan, tell me at least — I think I 
shall bear my life better if you will — tell 
me that at any rate you would never have 
relented — that if I had waited, waited, 
waited for years, you would always have 
held out against me ! If you have one 
grain of mercy in yon, tell me that you 
would always have been obdurate ! — 
whether it is true or false, tell me so.” 

Still she is silent. The dimness is, 
indeed, clearing away from before her 
eyes, and objects begin to reassume their 
true tints and steady shapes, but her 
throat still feels choked, and her lips, 
though they move, give out no articulate 
sound. 

“ What ! not a word ? ” he says hoarse- 
ly. “Joan — my Joan that was — that is 
— that is — God help me ! that always will 
be! Have not you one sweet word for 
me ? you that had so many ! Sweet or 
bitter, give me one! do not murder mo 
w'ith this silence ! ” 

Then at length with immeasurable 
difliculty she speaks. 

“ I have one word for you — only one 
— go ! I have no other ! ” 

“ I will not go ! ” he cries, insanely. 
“What security have I that, after to-night, 

I shall ever look upon your face again? 
With your good-will I know I never shall ; 
if there is any corner of the earth in 


JO AIT. 


157 


wliicli you can hide yourself from me you 
will. Do not I know you well enough 
for that? They tell me that you are 
going away into a new slavery to-morrow. 
Joan— poor Joan ! are you always — al- 
ways to bo a slave ? ” 

He has risen to his feet again. Scald- 
ing tears are in his eyes; and his face, 
young, straight-featured, and comely as it 
is, looks old and gray and unsightly. lie 
has advanced nearer to her, and in his 
madness is stretching out his arms toward 
her. She does not fly or shrink from 
him. On the contrary, she makes two 
steps toward him. Her feet feel unsteady 
and insecure, as though they could scarce- 
ly upbear the weight of her light body, 
but yet she steps toward him, and, as 
she so steps, his arms drop to his sides. 
There is that in her eye and her look 
which makes his frenzy quail and die. 

Anthony,” she says, laying her cold 
small hand on his coat-sleeve, and speak- 
ing in a voice which, though very low, does 
not tremble, “ is this the love that was to 
raise you to my level ? This, that, after 
having forgotten me in a month, now 
tries to do me the one last injury in its 
power, by blasting my good name ? ” 
Under her light touch, under the com- 
mand of her pure eyes, he stands as if 
turned to stone, lie neither stirs nor 
speaks. “ Go,” she says, pointing with 
pale austerity to the door, “ at once — this 
moment — and I will ask God to wipe this 
half-hour clean out of my memory; of 
liis clemency to let me forget that the 
man I thought such a stainless gentleman 
could be for one hour a coward and a 
traitor!” Under her words he starts 
and winces as if one had touched him 
with a hot iron, but still her eyes keep 
him dumb. “ What speech can there be 
any more between us two in this world? ” 
she goes on in the same steadfast, low 


key ; “ whether we are together in this 
narrow room, or whether all the great 
earth spreads between us, we are equal- 
ly forever — forever asunder. What is 
there left for us to do but to fight out 
our lives bravely and truly apart ? Per- 
haps ” (faltering a little) — “ perhaps when 
the fight is over — when this world is 
done with and put by ; when the 
next — ” 

“And if there is no next,” he says, 
heavily, breaking into her speech; “all 
the analogies of Nature, all the later se- 
crets she has given up, point one way! 
they all say, ‘ There is no other ! for you 
there is no other! make the most of 
this ! ’ ” 

“And if there is no other,” she cries, 
brokenly, lifting her clasped hands and 
streaming eyes — “perhaps it is so. I 
know not ! it is all thick blackness round 
me ! — but if there is no other, if this nar- 
row bridge of life is all the space that we 
are given in which to tread down the 
brute within us, to take the satyr by the 
throat and lift up the God ! then all the 
more — a hundred times the more — have 
we no time to lose ! let us begin at once 
— at once ! ” Her voice, so tremulous 
and shaken at first, has grown clear and 
strong, and into her eyes there has come 
a bright and saintly shining. “ Go ! ” she 
says, still pointing with slight lifted arm 
to the door, which is to shut him forever 
from her sight ; “ you have made me a 
very sorrowful woman ; you have made 
the taste of life bitter to me ; do not add 
this crowning grief — this sorrow for 
which there is no physic — the sorrow of 
thinking that I, whose one wish, as God 
lives, was to raise you to the better life 
— to make you worthier and nobler — that 
I should be made the tool with which 
you work your degradation ! Go ! ” 

And without another word he goes. 


PART II. 


CHAPTER I. 

The world — the old world or the 
young world — whichever way you choose 
to look at it, is nine hundred and twelve 
days older than it was. It is tw’o years 
and a half since we bade good-by to Joan. 
Since then there have been three sets of 
east winds and daffodils ; three of roses 
and hay-cocks ; two of flame-colored 
woods, and Michaelmas geese ; and two 
of snow-feathers and iron frosts. The 
world has swung along at its old jog-trot. 
Great people have died in small numbers, 
and small people in great numbers. Peo- 
ple have been wed, unwed, and half wed. 
Tears have flowed, whose united volume 
would make a river that would outs well 
the Mississippi ; and laughs have echoed, 
whose combined noise would drown the 
sound of man’s loudest cannon, or God’s 
best thunder-storm. And Joan Dering is 
still alive. She has contributed a few of 
the tears to the great river, and a few of 
the laughs to the great noise. 

When we left her it was February, 
when we find her again it is August. 
When we left her it was dark, when we 
find her it is light. When we left her it 
was night, when we find her it is day — 
an August day in the afternoon. But 
there is no sultry August sun-blaze. The 
whole air is occupied by a fine, small rain, 
soft as butter, thick as mist, that, while 
it seems to caress you, soaks you to the 
skin. And so, though it is a half-holi- 
day, the Smith 'Deloraine school-room is 
as inhabited as if it were mid-lesson time. 


By the open window, almost reached 
by the rain-plash, sits a little boy with 
heavy volume supported on small crossed 
knees, bent head, and hair falling into 
his studious eyes ; evidently buried, full 
five fathom deep, in the quarto page be- 
fore him. Another boy, a size larger, 
and apparently of a bent less intellectual 
than practical, has stealthily climbed upon 
a chair, and, by the aid of a grammar 
and a door ajar, is cautiously arranging a 
booby-trap for the reception of his sister 
Faustine, who left the room about ten 
minutes ago, and may shortly be expect- 
ed to return. 

Did his instructress see him she would 
undoubtedly pub a stop to his exertions ; 
but, as it happens, her back is turned tow- 
ard him ; and, moreover, for the moment, 
her thoughts are far enough from little 
boys. She is sitting at the table with 
brown head leaned on white hand, while 
before her lies open an old pocket-book, 
at one entry in which her blue eyes are 
fixedly staring. For the moment, she 
sees neither pupils, nor green baize, nor 
small rain, nor big maps. 

Her meditations are broken in upon 
by the voice of the little student, who 
suddenly lifts up his stooped head, his 
intently wrinkled forehead, and his little 
shrill voice. 

“ Miss Dering, why was not Queen 
Caroline a good woman? what did she 
do ? did she cut off people’s heads ? ” 

“ Hot that I ever heard of, Monty I ” 
replies Joan, laughing a little, and evading 
an explanation of the nature of the in- 


JO AX. 


159 


iquities perpetrated by George IV.’s con- 
sort. ‘ 

Again there is silence ; broken this 
time by tlie opening of the door (innocu- 
ously, for the booby-trap has missed fire), 
to admit a little girl, Joan’s eldest and 
last disciple — a well-to-do pink miss of 
ten. 

“ Miss Bering, mamma sends her love 
to you, and will you mind dining with 
them to-night? — they will be thirteen if 
you do not. Why do they mind being 
thirteen ? I asked mamma, and she said 
it was because of Judas Iscariot ! — what 
has Judas Iscariot to say to it ? ’’ 
i “ Going to dine! ” cries Rupert, with 
a long-drawn sigh of bitter envy ; “ how 
I wish I was going to dine ! what a lot 
I’d eat! I’d have twice of everything! ” 

“ What will you wear. Miss Bering? ” 
asks Faustine, gravely; “but you have 
so few dresses! — do not you wish that 
you had as many as mamma? Mills says 
that mamma might go on for a month 
without stopping, putting on two fresh 
dresses every day ! ” 

Joan smiles good-humoredly. 

“ If I had a hundred, I could not wear 
more than one at a time, could I ? ” 

“ Papa and mamma quarreled this 
morning ! ” says Rupert, triumphantly, 
in the tone of a discoverer ; “ they often 
quarrel ! Bo husbands and wives always 
quarrel, Miss Bering ? ” 

“ If you had a husband, do you think 
that you would quarrel with him ? ” asks 
Faustine, leaning her elbows on the ta- 
ble, and shaking her flax fleece. 

“ I wonder will you ever have a hus- 
band ? ” asks Rupert, staring affection- 
ately, with round, unblinking eyes, into 
Joan’s face, as if to gauge her probabili- 
ties of being wed. 

She laughs a little. 

“ I think it is extremely unlikely.” 

“ We will watch you as you go in to 
dinner, from the stairs,” says Faustine ; 
“ the maids always do ; *u will come 
last of all, will not you ? ” 

“ Yes, last of ail.” 


“ Miss Bering,” cries Monty, looking 
up again from his book with flushed 
cheeks and excited, shining eyes, in utter 
unconsciousness of there having been any 
intervening conversation between his last 
query and his present one, “ would not 
she say her prayers ? ” 

“Would not who?” asks Joan, who 
has forgotten the majesty of Brunswick. 

“I never heard of anybody but old 
Baddy Longlegs that would not.” 

The door again opens, and a tall, pale 
lady, with a pretty, fresh gown and a 
pretty, faded face, chronically discontent, 
trails slowly in. 

“ Has Faustine asked you ? ” she says, 
advancing to the table. “I thought 
I would make sure by coming myself; 
children never give messages’ correctly.” 

“You wish me to dine? ” says Joan, 
in a pleasant, ready voice. “I shall be 
very glad.” 

“We shall be thirteen if you do not! ” 
says the other, in a depressed tone. “ Mr. 
Smith Beloraine has invited a cousin of 
his at the last moment; so the whole 
party is disarranged, and the table has to 
be laid again.” 

“Yes?” 

“ His name is Smith ” (in a voice of 
languid disapprobation). “I have only 
seen him once! he is a little horror — a 
Yahoo — and I am afraid that I shall have 
to send you in with him ; but you need 
not speak to him ; he is beyond the pale 
of conversation, and is so overwhelmed 
with maumise Tionte^ that it is a barbarity 
to address him ! ” 

“Then I may enjoy my dinner in 
peace,” says Joan, laughing, “which is 
better than any conversation — is not it, 
Rupert?” 

“ By-the-by, you ought to know him ” 
(with a slight quickening of speech and 
animation of look) ; “ he is the man who 
bought Bering ! ” 

“ The man who bought Bering? ” re- 
peats Joan, starting, while a painful, hot 
flush runs hastily to her cheeks. “ Oh ! — 
j and — ” (with an accent of unavoidable 


160 


JO AI^. 


repugnance) — “ and I must go in to din- 
ner with him? ” Then, in a moment re- 
covering herself: “I am talking non- 
sense! Of course I — I — have no objec- 
tion! — I— I — do not mind.” 

“ It is very disgusting! I quite agree 
with you,” says Mrs. Smith Deloraine, 
putting her head on one side and speak- 
ing in a very piano tone, while she felici- 
tously ignores the fact that not so very 
long ago the Smith Deloraines’ family tree 
rose triumphant from Magenta dye — 
“the way in which all the old historic 
places are falling into the hands of these 
tinkers and tailors is very disgusting. 
But que xoulez-wus ? here they are ! and 
we must make the best of them.” 

“Every dog has his day, 1 suppose,” 
rejoins Joan, trying to smile, and to wink 
away the two large tears that have rushed 
to her eyes ; “ but the ex-dogs feel a lit- 
tle bitterly toward the reigning ones! ” 

“ Naturally. Dear me ! ” (sighing heav- 
ily), “how it rains! Life is very up-hill 
on this kind of days! ” and so trails de- 
pressedly away again, still sighing and 
lamenting that the table has to be fresh 
laid. 

When she is gone Joan sinks back 
again deeper than ever into her reflec- 
tions. Her eyes wander away through 
the window and the Scotch mist to the 
wet horizon, in the direction where 
twelve miles away she knows that the 
walls of Dering Castle are grayly rising. 
Her ears take no note of the little per- 
sistent child-voices round her, nor of the 
fire of reiterated, eager questions to which 
they are exposed. 

“ What is a Yahoo, Miss Dering? ” 
“Is papa a Yahoo? ” 

“ Of course, if his cousin is, he is.” 

“ Is mamma a Yahoo ? ” 

“ Are you a Yahoo ? ” 

“ Are we Yahoos ? ” 

“ Are Yahoos pretty ? ” 

By-and-by she is rid of the children 
too. 

They go off to a distant, unfurnished 
room, wdiere — there being nothing to 


break — nothing but high ceiling, unpa- 
pered walls, and bare floor — they are al- 
lowed to vent their ebullient spirits in a 
safe vacancy. They carry off even the re- 
luctant Montacute, who w'ould far rather 
have remained behind, with his quarto, 
to investigate still further the iil-doings 
of Caroline of Brunswick; but in vain. 
He is swept away by his boisterous broth- 
er and sister. 


CHAPTER II. 

Joan is dressed to the last pin and 
button. She has taken her farewell look 
at her own image — that look of temper- 
ate approval which a very pretty woman 
must, in common honesty, award to her 
own reflection. She would admire such a 
face were it on any one else’s body. Why 
not because it is on her own ? J oan knows 
quite as well as you could tell her that she 
is pretty ; but it is such an old piece of 
news that it brings no great elation or com- 
placency with it. As long as she can re- 
member, she has alw'ays been pretty, and 
people have told her so. It is not they 
whose beauty has grown up wflth them 
from babyhood to whom it is a perilous 
gift; it is those who have jumped from 
an ugly, unpromising girlhood into a hand- 
some womanhood, whose heads are most- 
ly turned by their own charms. 

Joan is dressed in black. She usually 
is. It is economic and unremarkable, and 
all colors go with it. Her gown is a vet- 
eran — a scarred and war-worn veteran; 
one of her original Dering stock ; one of 
those which the Misses Moberley copied 
in cheap materials and gaudy colors, and 
garbled in the copying. It has been 
modified so as to tally fairly with the 
now mode; and having been originally 
of the best French cut, and the richest, 
softest Lyons silk, it is still even in its 
decline emin|^tly respectable. A little 
kerchief of cobweb muslin and ancient 
yellowy lace — also a relic of her gene 


JOAN. 


16 i 


prosperity, for she is hardly likely to buy 
old Flemish point nowadays — is 

“ Over her decent shoulders drawn.” 

In her charming head, sleek and 
smooth as a robin’s, there is no ornament 
but a little careless bunch of field pop- 
pies, bluettes, and ripe corn, that the 
children brought her, and which she 
wears rather to avoid hurting their feel- 
ings than from any more personal motive. 
She is quite ready now, and has reentered 
the school-room. 

“ You have been only twenty minutes 
dressing I ” cries Faustine, looking from 
the clock to Joan, with round, astonished 
eyes ; “ mamma never takes less than an 
hour ! ” 

“ Mind you come and see us when we 
are in bed,” says Rupert, impressively, 
“and tell us how many things you had 
for dinner ! ” 

“You have only three buttons on 
your gloves! ” says Faustine, taking hold 
of one of them, and eying it with a rather 
contemptuous look ; “ mamma has six ; 
when I am a grown-up lady I mean to 
have twelve 1 ” 

Joan is in the drawing-room now. 
She has run rather hastily down-stairs, 
under the impression that she is late ; 
but, on entering, she finds that only ten 
people besides herself are yet assembled 
— that three must therefore be still miss- 
ing. The host and hostess are both stand- 
ing on the Persian hearth-rug, though 
no fire lures them thither. Mrs. Smith 
Deloraine is a good head taller than her 
husband. That there may be no mistake 
about it, she is fond of standing beside 
him, and drawing up her slight, tall figure 
to its last inch, so as to display to the 
world this advantage. Mr. Smith Delo- 
raine is indeed neither so long nor so 
smart as his name. 

Almost every trade and profession 
writes its name more or less plainly on 
its votaries ; but none doe^his so dis- 
tinctly as commerce. Commerce is writ- 
ten all over Mr. Smith Deloraine, from 
11 


head to heel. He could not be a soldier, 
a sailor, a lawyer, or a clergyman. Mr. 
Smith Deloraine gives you the impression 
that, if he let himself go — if he got drunk 
or jocular — if he flew into a rage or made 
love — he would be uncommonly vulgar ; 
but, by judiciously avoiding powerful 
emotions and colloquial expressions, he 
does very nicely. 

As Joan enters, his wife is saying 
fretfully, “ I am sure I do not know how 
much longer we are going to wait for 
Mr. Smith Deloraine' s cousin: no one 
should be allowed more than ten minutes’ 
law 1 it is not fair upon one’s cook! ” 

“But, my love,” suggests the host, 
with the deferential air of a man who 
has married above him, and never, even 
in sleep, forgets the liberty he has taken, 
“ you forget that it is not only my cousin 
that has played truant — that we have not 
yet had the pleasure of welcoming your 
own relatives ! ” 

His love looks full at him, or rather 
at the place on which he is standing, 
without apparently being able to see 
him ; nor does she vouchsafe him the 
very least answer, beyond stretching out 
her hand to the bell to ring for dinner. 

“ O Miss Dering ! ” she cries, catch- 
ing sight of Joan, “ is not it unfortunate? 
I have just had a telegram from my cous- 
in to say that she and her husband have 
missed .their train and cannot be here till 
ten ! I am so vexed ! but ” (sighing 
heavily) “it has been a day of contre- 
temps ! ” 

It is Joan’s first intimation that her 
employer expected any cousins ; but she 
expresses the proper regrets. Five min- 
utes later, they are all marching in to 
dinner; Joan bringing up the rear, in 
composed solitude. As she crosses the 
hall, she looks upward to send nods and 
becks up to the children, who, in com- 
pany with half a dozen lady’s-maids ap- 
praising the smart gowns, are hanging 
over the banisters. 

Joan’s position at the dinner-table is 
between the master of the house and a 


162 


JOAN. 


vacant place ; not a promising situation 
for conversational enjoyment ; but J oan 
has no great wish to converse. Her one 
desire is that the empty seat should re- 
main empty throughout dinner. Not all 
her self-schooling, her philosophy, her 
common-sense, or her Christian charity, 
have succeeded in making her feel that 
she can give anything more than the 
nakedest skeleton of civility to Bering’s 
new lord. Can the ex-king willingly 
hobnob with the reigning one ? She has 
already made a vivid picture of him 
in her mind ; the triumphant plutocrat ! 
probably large and heavily jeweled; with 
florid shirt-front, and boastful, famil- 
iar manners. Every five minutes which 
find him still absent are so much clear 
gain. It is true that Joan’s own dinner 
prospect is not very lively ; but that is a 
minor evil. She translates and commits 
to memory the whole of the menu^ for 
Kupert’s benefit. She takes quiet note 
of her fellow-guests, and, being healthily 
hungry, enjoys her food. 

Soup is safely passed, and the party is 
in mid-fish when Joan’s careless eyes are 
caught and fettered by the sight of a little 
young gentleman with a red head, and a 
small face on which freckles and fright 
strive for mastery ; who is tendering stut- 
tered apologies to the hostess, and having 
them received in a manner which would 
make a stouter heart than his quail, a 
wiser face than his look foolish. Is this 
the triumphant plutocrat — this unhappy 
little lad, bathed in scarlet discomfiture 
from top to toe, who is beginning aim- 
lessly to ramble round the dinner-table ; 
not seeing in his confusion that a kind- 
hearted footman is trying to guide him 
to his destined seat ? 

He is deposited in it at last, and, in a 
small and shaking voice, refuses the soup 
that has been recalled for him. Joan’s 
animosity dies on the spot — replaced by 
an immense surprise, and a hardly infe- 
rior compassion. It would be barbarity 
to address him now, but by-and-by, when 
he is cooled, fed, and calmed, it will, per- 


haps, be an act of Christian charity to 
make some small, soothing observation to 
him. 

For a full quarter of an hour, there- 
fore, she leaves him entirely alone ; then, 
when the last entree is setting out on its 
travels, she turns her charming, kind face 
toward him, and, in a low, pleasant voice 
that would not frighten a mouse or a 
hare, speaks : 

“You mistook the dinner-hour, I 
dare say? It has happened to me once 
or twice in my life ! ” 

On perceiving that he is addressed, the 
flamingo hue again rushes over the little 
young gentleman, far as the eye can reach. 
Not daring to look her in the face, he 
shoots a timorous glance out of the corner 
of his right eye, from amid a forest of 
white eyelashes, and says in a hurried, 
low voice : 

“The clocks were different; ought 
not I to have come in? Did it matter 
much ? ” 

Joan smiles involuntarily. 

“ Not in the least I "Why should it ? 
Did you drive over — drive yourself ? ” 

“ Oh, dear, no ! ” (in the same quick, 
nervous voice). “ I never drive, I do not 
know much about horses ; I came in a fly I ” 

A pause. 

“Were you ever here before?” asks 
Joan, perceiving that the conversation, 
if kept up at all, must be supported cat- 
echism-fashion — question and answer — 
and being perversely resolved not to let 
her little victim relapse again into si- 
lenee. 

“ No, never ! ” (looking timidly round 
the table). “ I know nobody, I am quite 
a stranger in these parts.” 

“And yet you belong to this neigh- 
borhood?” says Joan, interrogatively. 
She cannot bring herself to ask more 
directly after her beloved, desecrated 
home, and yet has a morbid longing to 
have it brought into the conversation. 

“ I suppose so ” (in a not very exhila- 
rated tone). “ I have lately purchased a 
place about twelve miles away — a very 


JOAN. 


163 


largo place” (sigMng) ; “perhaps you 
may have heard of it ? Bering Castle ! ” 

“ Certainly I have heard of it,” she 
answers, with a smile of exceeding sad- 
ness ; “ not only so, but I used once to 
live there ! ” 

“ Indeed ! ” (curiosity, for the mo- 
ment, getting the better of mauvaise 
lionte^ and turning upon her for the first 
time a small, full face, quite as insignifi- 
cant and rather more foolish than its pro- 
file). 

“ My name is Bering,” she says in a 
very low voice. “I used to live there 
with my grandfather.” 

“ Oh, really! ” (in a tone of, if pos- 
sible, increased awe). “ You are a mem- 
ber of the late family — I had no idea! ”, 
A moment later, in a hesitating tone: 
“"Were you — were you — much attached 
to the place ? ” 

“I loved it! ” she answers; her fair 
breast heaving under its dainty kerchief, 
and her blue eyes growing moist. “It 
would be a wonder if I did not. I spent 
twenty most happy years there.” 

“ Oh, indeed ! ” Then, in a rather 
dubious voice : “ It is a very fine place, 
of course — very fine — one of the show- 
places of the county, I am told — and it 
has always been thrown open to the 
public every Friday, I hear. A very fine 
place for a numerous family, but do not 
you think that it is rather — rather large 
for one person ? ” 

“Rather large!” echoes Joan, indig- 
nantly. “ Surely that is a good fault in 
a castle ! ” 

“ The rooms are so very spacious,” 
continues their owner, nervously ; “ and 
there are so many of them that, though I 
have occupied it now for three months, I 
can scarcely find my way about yet. I 
have never been used to a large house.” 

“No?” 

There is a silence. Joan can’t speak 
for anger and pain at the thought of this 
trumpery stripling walking, sole master, 
about the dear old halls and rich dusk 
chambers, and reviling them in his little 


caitiff heart for their nobility. Her com- 
panion is far from guessing at her emo- 
tion. He knows only that she is listen- 
ing to him with interested attention ; that 
her voice is soft and civil, and her face 
lovely and kind, and that he himself is 
not nearly so much frightened as he was. 
He, indeed, is the first to renew the con- 
versation. 

“ Perhaps ” (in a hesitating voice, and 
growing pink again) — “perhaps, if you 
were so fond of the castle, you might 
like to run over some day and see the 
improvements.” 

“ Improvements ! ” cries Joan, hastily, 
coming out of her disagreeable reverie. 
“What improvements?” Then, recol- 
lecting herself, and in a calmer voice : 
“ Have you, then, been making many im- 
provements? ” 

“ There is a great deal of new furni- 
ture introduced,” says the young man, 
with a faint fiash of pleasure in his pale 
eyes. “I suppose that the castle had 
not been refurnished for many years. I 
am no judge myself of such matters, so I 
was advised to put it into the hands of a 
local upholsterer.” 

“ A great deal of new furniture ! ” re- 
peats Joan, drawing a long breath. 
“ Yes !— and what else ? ” 

“ All the old tapestry has been re- 
moved,” continues Mr. Smith, growing 
almost fiuent under the fostering infiu- 
ence of his companion’s attention and 
evident approbation. “ It was so faded, 
dingy, and out of repair ; it has been re- 
placed by white and gold, and mirrors in 
the French taste ! ” 

“ White and gold, and mirrors in the 
French taste! ” repeats Joan, mechanical- 
ly. “Yes — and what else ? ” 

“All the windows throughout the 
building have been turned into sash ones, 
the best plate-glass instead of the old 
casements. No expense has been spared. 
I think” (with a nervous smile) “that 
you will say I have not been idle.” 

“I am sure I shall! ” she answers in 
a very low voice, bending down her head. 


164 


JOAN. 


Her white hands are clinched together in 
her lap, her face has grown pale, and her 
lips are pinched. Why, oh why, did she 
ask these questions? Why did not she 
remain in her old blest ignorance ? Why 
did not she leave undisturbed in her 
memory the old oak panels, the harmo- 
nious dim tapestry hues, the casements 
opening on roses and ivy ? 

It is well for Joan, and perhaps also 
for her neighbor, though he does not 
think so, that at this moment H^rs. Smith 
Deloraine begins to gather up her loose 
baggage, and beckons away the ladies. 
Joan rises hastily. Never — never has she 
left a table, or a table companion, with 
greater readiness. As they pass through 
the hall Mrs. Smith Deloraine lays her 
hand affectionately on Joan’s shoulder. 

“ Thank you so much ! ” she says, lack- 
adaisically ; “ how good you were! — you 
drew him out wonderfully! ” 

“ Did I? ” says Joan, with a gasp and 
an hysterical laugh ; “ then I wish 1 had 
not ! ” 

“lie is a little horror! ” rejoins the 
other, in a disgusted tone; “did not I 
tell you so ? He has been nowhere and 
knows no one, and he has white eyelash- 
es ; but ” (shaking her head), “ for all 
that, he is an enormous parti ! ” 

“ I suppose so ! ” replies Joan, slowly ; 
“ he does not give one that impression.” 

“ He is a little beggar on horseback ! ” 
cries her companion, with more energy 
than one could have supposed her discon- 
tented, soft voice capable of; “about a 
year ago he came quite unexpectedly into 
this colossal fortune ; and now that he 
has it,, he knows no more what to do with 
it than that fire-shovel ; it makes one 
sick ! ’’ 

Joan is silent; though certainly not 
from any disagreement with the senti- 
ment expressed. Her heart is too full to 
speak. She sits down and begins to talk 
to one of the ladies about her work ; but 
to all her gentle, womanly chat, there is, 
in her mind, a drear background of torn 
ivy, rent tapestry, sash-windows. 


The evening wears away. Coffee is 
past; the men reappear. Joan’s naw pro- 
tege^ on first entering the room, has aimed 
at her a piteous, shipwrecked look, but, 
seeing her palisaded round by women, his 
heart fails him ; and he remains planted 
on the hearth-rug — the spot whither he 
had first drifted. • The other men have 
dispersed about the room; have thrown 
themselves into easy-chairs ; have engaged 
in talk. He alone still stands ; afraid to 
sit down, afraid to stir, afraid to speak to 
any one ; with his trembling hands folded 
behind his coat-tails for want of knowing 
where else to put them ; while now and 
again waves of red misery rush over his 
whole body, as often as he thinks that 
any one is looking at him. 

There he stands, a wretched little 
Crusoe, an his desert island of hearth- 
rug. Joan looks at him, and smiles ma- 
liciously. It is the first time in her life 
that the suffering of a fellow-creature 
has moved her to mirth. "W ere the case 
any other, she would rush helter-skelter, 
pell-mell to the rescue. But toward him 
her heart is hardened. No punishment 
can be too heavy for him who has muti- 
lated the dear and reverend face of her 
ancient home, and set its venerable body 
masquerading in tawdry modern frippery ; 
no punishment — not even that of stand- 
ing, a forlorn, unrescued, social Crusoe, 
without man Friday, umbrella, or parrot. 

It is ten o’clock now, and past ; and 
the hostess’s expected cousins are over- 
due. She has observed several times that 
they will be hungry — that they will be 
tired — that she wishes they would come ; 
and has succeeded in awakening a feeling 
of faint expectancy in the breasts of the 
company generally, when, at length, the 
listened-for carriage-wheels are heard 
crunching the gravel of the drive ; the 
hall-door bell is rung; no dogs rush out 
(for, alas ! it is a house unblessed by 
dog presences); servants hasten to an- 
swer the summons, and Mrs. Smith Del- 
oraine herself hurries out, leaving the 
door open behind her. There is aTull in 


J 0 


165 


the talk among those who are left be- 
hind : all, however little addicted to 
eaves-dropping, involuntarily listening — 
listening to the sound of cheerful, mixed 
voices that has risen in the adjoining 
hall; voices welcoming — voices being 
welcomed — voices questioning, replying, 
ejaculating. At first they all talk at 
once, and you can detect no separate 
tones ; but after a moment or two a 
strange woman’s voice, clear, enjouee^ 
rather loud, raises itself above the others. 

A strange woman’s ! — strange she may 
be to the rest of the party, but is she 
strange to Joan? As those tones first 
strike her ear, her little deer-head, slight- 
ly stooped over her work, suddenly lifts 
itself; the hands, moving a minute ago 
so deft and white among her crewels, 
fall suddenly idle in her lap. Her eyes 
turn, wide and startled, toward the door. 
Quick, short breaths draw in and again 
puff out her fine nostrils. Can there be 
two voices in the world so miraculously 
alike? Can there be such a wondrous 
sameness in the trick of two people’s 
laughter ? Oh, if they would but come 
in ! There is no doubt but that the first 
glimpse of the new-comer will disperse 
this painful, mad illusion ! — will make her 
racing heart pulse with reasonable slow- 
ness again. How they dawdle 1 How 
long they are! And yet. they are not 
long really! It is scarcely five minutes 
from the moment when the hall-door 
bell rang to that at which they enter the 
drawing - room — Mrs. Smith Deloraine 
leading her gayly-chattering cousin, and 
the men (for Mr. Smith Deloraine has 
sped solicitously out in his wife’s wake) 
following behind them. 

Before they are well over the thresh- 
old, Joan’s eyes have fastened upon and 
taken possession of the entering forms. 
What new trick of Fate is this? There is 
no need for a second look. The first one 
darted, lightning-quick, has assured her, 
past the possibility of error, that the new- 
comer’s face and figure are not less fa- 
miliar to her than were her voice and her 


laugh ; and that face, figure, voice, laugh, 
belong to none other than to Lalage 
Wolferstan! And if the woman be La- 
lage, who then is this handsome, dusty 
man that is stepping after her, making 
polite, short answers to his new host’s 
volleyed civilities? Who is he likely to 
be? Who but her husband? Who but 
Anthony ? 


CHAPTER III. 

“ How you dazzle one! ” cries Lalage, 
advancing into the room, blinking her 
eyes, unused, after her long, dark drive, 
to the light; “how bright you are! — is 
there any one here that I know, I won- 
der? I hope, if there is, that he will 
come and claim acquaintance with me, 
for I can see nothing ! ” Then, as her 
sight suddenly recovers its wonted 
strength and clearness, she turns her 
quick, bold eyes round the room. In a 
moment they have lit upon Joan. “ Miss 
Dering! — is it Miss Dering? — how very 
absurd! — Anthony, here is Miss Dering! 
— you do not mean to say that you do not 
remember Miss Dering! ” 

There comes no answer of any kind ; 
at least in words. What answer is writ- 
ten on his face, Joan can but dimly con- 
jecture, for her eyes refuse to lift them- 
selves to his. She puts out a small and 
icy hand in the direction where she feels 
that he is, and is aware that it is taken 
for a second into one as cold; then in- 
stantly dropped. 

One thing is certain ; and that is, that 
her fingers cannot be in greater haste to 
get away from his than his are to get 
away from hers. 

“ How small the world is ! ” cries La- 
lage, lightly ; then quickly turning, in an- 
swer to an inquiry from her hostess, to 
a subject that is much nearer her heart : 
“ Famished, my dear ? of course we are ! 
do not we look it ? You have kept some 
dinner for us, I hope — yes ? — that is right ! 


166 


JOAN. 


and bow soon do you think it will be 
ready? do beg them to make baste! 

“Certainly!” (sweeping hospitably 
toward the bell in one of the fifty-six 
long-tailed gowns of which her daughter 
has made exultant mention) ; “ but surely 
you will like to take off your bonnet 
first.” 

“And remove a few of my layers of 
dust,” says Lalage, laughing, and passing 
a fine but dusty handkerchief over her 
handsome, dusty cheek; “perhaps it 
would be more civilized! ” (beginning to 
move toward the door, then, her eye sud- 
denly alighting again upon Joan) — “0 
Miss Dering, I remember your good-na- 
ture of old, and you have not been travel- 
ing for sixteen hours; do run into the 
outer hall and see if I have left my hand- 
bag there ! ” 

“ Why will you trouble other people 
with your errands?” interrupts a vexed 
man’s voice, in a tone of deep though 
smothered irritation; “ you know that I 
am always ready to go on your messages ! 
what is it you want? ” 

Joan has come forward readily, though 
with knocking knees and an ash-white 
face, to perform the service asked of her ; 
but, at the sound of those tones, so well 
known and yet so unknown (for where is 
the boyish jollity, the catching mirth, 
that always used to echo in the old An- 
thony’s voice?), she shrinks back again 
into her corner, cowers away as if to get 
out of sight and ear-shot. 

She takes up her needle again ; but her 
shaking fingers are unable to guide it. 
It is impossible to her to set one stitch. 
But though she is incapable of working 
really, an apparent absorption in her oc- 
cupation will moke her less likely to be 
addressed. They have left the room now, 
and she breathes more freely ; Lalage still 
laughing, and talking emphatically and 
rather loudly about her own hunger, and 
Anthony dead — dead silent. It is some 
time before they return ; not until after 
the longed-for and so eagerly-asked-after 
dinner has been done justice to. In the 


mean time Joan remains in the corner of 
the old-fashioned sofa behind the work- 
table; the same spot where she was when 
the tones of Lalage’s remembered voice 
first siiK)te her like a sword. Her head 
is down, bent over her work; all the 
pretty tools of her trade are spread around 
her. She has all the air of a persistent 
industry, and yet is, in effect, absolutely 
idle. About her goes on the hum of light 
talk, utterly unheard ; a wave that fiows 
round her without reaching or touching 
her. After a while she becomes aware 
that the ill-starred millionaire is seated 
alongside of her. 

She has no smallest idea of how he 
came there, nor is aware that she herself 
by a kind but quite unconscious smile 
authorized him in the audacity of squeez- 
ing himself into the distant opposite sofa 
corner. There he now sits; having, in 
utter nervousness, built up a barrier of 
two fat cushions and a bolster between 
them. He has recovered the power of 
speech, and is employing it to tell her 
many new and monstrous facts about his 
improvements ; facts which at any other 
time would make her soft hair stand up- 
right on her head, but which now she 
does not even hear. She has indeed all 
the appearance of giving, by small and 
friendly nods here and there, assent and 
approbation to each fresh record of atro- 
city. 

By-and-by the fed guests return; or 
rather, one of them does, the other does 
not at all reappear ; one of them, escorted 
by the hostess, who has been doing them 
the doubtful kindness of bearing them 
company and watching them while they 
ate. 

“At what time do they go to bed 
here ? ” asks Lalage, throwing herself in- 
to an easy-chair at Joan’s elbow, and look- 
ing yawningly at the clock; “early, I 
trust ? I hope they do not keep one up 
playing any horrid games ; I hate a house 
where they play games ! ” Then, without 
giving time for a reply, she goes on, her 
quick, cool look running over Joan’s tout 


JOAN. 


167 


ensenible : “ How very little changed you 
are! what a good digestion you must 
have! Do you see much alteration in 
me?” 

Joan has lifted her eyes to her com- 
panion’s face ; from it they slowly travel 
to her figure, then back again ; but slowly 
as her eyes travel, her answer comes more 
slowly still. To such a question it must 
needs be a lagging one. Alteration ? ay, 
that she does. Such alteration as makes 
us peer nervously into our own glasses, 
when we meet an old friend after aa in- 
terval of years. Bulk increased; delicacy 
decreased. A figure that has outrun, 
overfiowed the once bounds of its volup- 
tuous symmetry. A chin that has hand- 
somely kept its early promise of doubling 
itself ; carnations and lilies, once so finely 
distinct and separate, now running into 
and marring each other. A universal 
blurring of outline, coarsening of tint, 
shipwreck of grace. 

“ An embarrassing question ! ” says 
Lalage, looking keenly in the girl’s con- 
fused face, and with a short laugh — “you 
cannot deny that you do ; well, I should 
not have believed you if you had ; I have 
worn infamously I it will soon be matter 
of history that I was once good-looking! ” 
Joan is distressedly silent. To such a re- 
mark what reply is possible? “I have 
increased in weight three stone in the 
last two years,” continues Lalage, looking 
at her own still soft and once shapely 
hand with an air of impartial disapproba- 
tion; “of course that is not healthy or 
natural at my age ; the doctors tell me I 
should be all right again if I would walk 
five miles a day, and get up at six o’clock, 
and live on roast-mutton and gruel.” 

“ And do not you? ” (in a tone of ex- 
treme surprise). 

“ Hardly ! ” (with a shrug). “ I would 
not do any of the three if it would insure 
my holding out to eighty ! — why should 
I ? If I prefer to live thirty years com- 
fortably, with unlimited tea and sleep, 
and unrestricted bonbons and entremets^ 
to dragging out a dwindled existence to 


one hundred, on toast-and- water and 
captain’s biscuits, surely that is my look- 
out ! ” 

“Undoubtedly! ” says Joan, dryly. 

“ I have never thought a woman’s life 
much worth having after thirty ! ” pur- 
sues Lalage, with a careless gravity ; “or, 
in the case of an Englishwoman we will 
perhaps say five-and-thirty ; by five-and- 
thirty the best of us has pretty well come 
to the end of her tether ! — to lose one’s 
looks, and be dieted too ! — bah ! ” — (with 
a reckless accent) — “ it would be simpler 
to be dead at once ! ” Joan shudders a 
little, but does not answer. “ They tell 
me I am killing myself ! ” continues her 
companion, indifierently ; “Anthony is 
always saying so ! I tell him ” (with a 
dry laugh) “that the wish is father to 
the thought ! ” A moment later, in a tone 
of much greater interest and animation : 
“ Courage ! my ostentatious yawns have 
at last caught my cousin’s eye ; I do be- 
lieve we are going to bed ! ” 


CHAPTEPw IV. 

Usually Joan is a deep sleeper. Very 
seldom is her pretty head vexed by one 
of those flighty, purposeless visitors that 
we call dreams. Generally she lies all 
night quite still, scarcely charging once 
her quiet posture. Very often the 
house-maid who comes to call her finds 
her with the curly lashes of her closed 
eyes sweeping her cheeks. 

“ For she, belike, had drunken deep 
Of all the blessedness of sleep 1 ” 

But to-night she does but sparely sip 
that lovely draught. In wretched toss- 
ings and tumblings the lengthy hours 
crawl away ; they that mostly pass like 
a pleasant flash. She lies on her right 
side. That is unbearable. She lies on 
the left. That is worse. Her cheeks are 
like live coals. They have lent their fe- 
ver to the pillow, which has, for the 
whole night, lost the cool freshness that 


168 


JOAN. 


it had when first she laid her face upon 
it. Her hair cleaves damply to her fore- 
head. Loud pulses seem ticking and 
hammering inside her head. The win- 
dow is open, and the blind down. It 
keeps tapping against the sill with a teas- 
ing noise. She rises and draws it up. 

A tall Lombardy poplar is lifting its 
high head against the sky, and the thin, 
tawny clouds are racing away behind it. 
She stands with head leaned against the 
window - frame, and lips apart. It is 
easier to breathe here. The night air is 
cool and plentiful, and comes in with a 
willing, soft rush. No angry blood can 
long keep up its painful high temperature 
under this strong fanning. She draws a 
deep, long breath, and lays her interlaced 
white bands over her heart, with a feel- 
ing of astonishment that any heart can 
go so quick. She had thought that the 
season for heart-beat was over in her 
life; that through aU her future years, 
however many and long, it would always 
pace on at its usual even Jog-trot. And 
now, he who alone had ever made that 
steadfast heart hasten its healthy pace, 
he alone, of all mankind, in whose arms 
she has ever lain, he on whose breast her 
many tears dropped, as they stood to- 
gether on the brown gold of the sea- 
sands, he, her alone love, her faulty, un- 
stable, disloyal one love, is again her 
house-mate, is again within reach of her 
unwilling eyes, of her pained, reluctant 
ears. 

She looks out at the shadows, shaking 
and shifting in the gusty moonlight. Is 
he, too, awake now? Is his heart, too, 
racing at the same hard, sick gallop? 
Are his eyes as dry, and wide, and hope- 
lessly wakeful? It is most unlikely. 
Why are they here ? To what end does 
the Great Purpose that guides our desti- 
nies allow these two broken, dissevered 
lives again to intersect each other ? How 
many hundreds of thousands of women 
are there in England to whom Lalage 
might harmlessly have been cousin ! How 
many homes where their arrival would 


have quickened no pulse-beat I Why, 
then, must they come here, where their 
coming murders sleep, sets cool cheeks 
burning, makes a trouble in quiet veins, 
and wakes old, dead longings out of their 
frosty sleep ? 

The battle has to be fought all over 
again — the battle which she had looked 
upon as belonging as completely to the 
past as her grandfather’s death, or her 
own heart-wrench at leaving Dering; 
the battle of which it has long seemed to 
her as if only a kind and gentle memory 
of its slain were left, and which now she 
already feels beginning to rage and noise 
within her. It is long indeed before 
Joan falls asleep ; nor even then does 
her slumber merit the worthy name of 
sleep, so distressed is it by blind and fu- 
tile dreams — anxious, struggling, unquiet. 
When first the early light (for she has left 
the blind up), striking on her shut eyes, 
half wakes her, she turns and hides all her 
face in the pillow, with a misty longing 
to keep full consciousness at bay — a vague 
endeavor not to examine into the nature 
and quality of this lump of lead that is 
lying on her soul. But even the dim 
thought of it brings, in a moment, the 
complete waking that she dreads. Here 
she is face to face in the broad new day- 
light with her trouble; face to face, as 
she has already been by candle-light, by 
starlight, and in darkness. 

It is Sunday morning, and Joan begins 
it with a headache. Not a good, thorough, 
ceremonious headache, such as Justifies 
staying in bed in silence and solitude, 
with closed shutters and banished light, 
but an insignificant, common one, such as 
hinders one in the doing of no usual 
duty, but puts a pin-prick into every 
one ; such a headache as makes the eyes 
heavy, the nerves Jarring, the temper 
tart; such as renders a dull noise unpleas- 
ant, and a sharp one insupportable. 

It is unlucky that on such a day the 
children — usually not much wickeder 
than their neighbors — should have elect- 
ed to be suddenly possessed by a devil 


JOAN. 


169 


of teasing and tiresome naughtiness of 
unfunny loud fun, and excessive foolish 
mirth. This, indeed, does not apply to 
Montacute, who is, as usual, buried in a 
book, and only emerges from it every now 
and then, to put irrelevant and posing 
questions about the equator. Joan has 
never hitherto realized how very little 
she knows about the equator. Eupert 
and Faustine are seated side by side, each 
with a smart Bible open on their knees, 
ostensibly committing to memory passages 
of Scripture ; in reality, diversifying and 
lightening their labors by a good deal 
of covert scuffling and much fatiguing, 
causeless, chuckled laughter. By-and- 
by, Eupert varies* the programme by 
breaking out into snatches of low-lived 
rliyme. His small, childish voice uplifts 
itself, high and shrill, in the following 
choice ditty : 

“ Jlilr. Lobsky said to his ugly wife, 

‘ I’m going to the river to fish for my life.’ 
‘ You nasty beast, you know you aren’t, 
You know you’re going to galliwarnV ” 

“ Eupert ! ” cries Joan, lifting her 
aching head from her supporting hand, 
and speaking in a tone of irritated sharp- 
ness most unusual to her, “ what do you 
mean ? Stop, this instant ! ” 

“ James sings it ! ” replies Eupert, 
triumphantly — James is one of the foot- 
men — “ he is always singing it ; he knows 
a grea.t many more verses ! ” 

“ I dare say ! ” says Joan, tartly. “ I 
am not James’s governess; if I were, I 
should certainly forbid his deafening me 
with such a hideous song, as I now forbid 
you ! ” 

Eupert looks rebellious, but does not 
answer verbally. He indemnifies him- 
self, however, for this silence, and exhib- 
its at the same time his independence of 
spirit, and his high courage, by repeating 
over a great number of times to himself 
in a semi-audible recitation the objection- 
able words, in place of those of the chap- 
ter which he is learning. His sister, 
Faustme, though not particularly anxious 


to engage in any iniquity on her own ac- 
count, having before her eyes too plainly 
the possible penalty of forfeited Sunday- 
late dinner, is yet able to enjoy the safe 
satisfaction of egging on her brother by 
many pregnant looks, expressive nudges, 
and an affectation of extravagant merri- 
ment. Of all these phenomena, though 
specially aimed at her, Joan takes no 
manner of notice, chiefiy because she 
feels that, if she did, she would, in the 
present state of her nerves, be led into 
the expression of a wrath so dispropor- 
tionate to the offense as would forever 
wound her prestige in the eyes of her 
disciples. She feels it a little hard that 
Anthony, Mr. Lobsky, and her headache, 
should all have come on the scene at the 
sa||e time. She could have coped well 
enough with one at a time, or perhaps 
even with two ; but now that they face 
her all three abreast, she feels that they 
are almost too many for her. By-and-by 
the nudging and chuckling, the recitation 
and its attendant applause, wear them- 
selves out, and come to an end. Eupert 
and Faustine retire to the farthest win- 
dow, where they remain for some time 
so unnaturally quiet that Joan feels at 
length constrained to examine into the 
cause of this abnormal stillness. She 
finds her pupils recreating themselves 
with the ingenious and novel amusement 
of trying which can get a fiwthing far- 
thest up the nose. 

It is church-time at last. Joan and 
the children have reached the church. 
The sun has made Joan’s head worse; 
and Montacute, unconscious of the pain 
he is indicting, has harried her with the 
equator up to the church-door. Thank 
God, it is left on the threshold, to be 
taken up again, no doubt, the moment 
that the sermon is ended. 

Faustine ahead, and sobered by the 
consciousness of a smart frock, a smarter 
hat, and superbly crepe hair, walks se- 
dately along, no longer a boisterous child ; 
a mincing self-conscious little woman of 
the world. They are in church now, and 


170 


JOAN. 


are seated in the hindermost of the half-‘ 
dozen open sittings appertaining to the 
Smith Deloraine family. It is a little old 
church, whose every wall and corner are 
covered and crowded with monuments 
to, and effigies of, one family — not of the 
Smith Deloraines, it is hardly needful to 
say ; since it is well known that it is not 
more than twenty years that they have 
been in a position to put up angels and 
willows to each other — but of a knight- 
ly, long-decayed, and now extinct race. 
Joan’s eyes have often sought these worn 
memorials with a sense of sympathy and 
fellow-feeling for these dogs who, like 
her, have had their day. To-day she 
gives no heed to the quiet dead. Her | 
thoughts are too hotly occupied with the 
living. By-and-by the clergyman^nd 
his clerk make their modest entry, wmch, 
as it happens simultaneously wdth that 
of the Smith Deloraine party, is absolute- 
ly unnoticed and swamped. 

The school- children’s heads turn tow- 
ard the door as unanimously as if they 
were ripe ears of corn swept all one way 
by the wind. Even adult heads seem un- 
able to keep quite straight. Here they 
come, with a swish, a rustle, 2 . frou-frou! 
Lalage sweeping the dust of the aisle 
with a faint-colored, costly gown ; her 
gay cold eyes roving all about the church ; 
her red lips still parted in the laugh which 
she has evidently brought with her, as 
Montacute did the equator, to the church- 
door. The ladies first, then the men ; 
the host, with his civil, smug, commercial 
smile; here they all are! Here among 
them is the millionaire, looking, if pos- 
sible, smaller, redder, forlorner by day- 
light than he did by candle-light. He 
comes in with his white eyelashes cast 
down, awkwardly stumbling over the last 
lady’s train. On catching sight of Joan, he 
takes sudden timid refuge in the pew 
with her and the children, where, after 
having noisily knocked down his umbrel- 
la, and dropped his prayer-book irrecov- 
erably far into the pew before him, he at 
length subsides into a seat beside the very 


upright, supercilious, small figure and 
long, dangling legs of Miss Faustine. 

Every lady present has brought her 
mate with her — every lady, with one ex- 
ception. That exception is Lalage. Colo- 
nel Wolferstan is not here. Perhaps 
something has retarded him, and he may 
follow them. The clergyman reads the 
opening words of the exhortation, and 
every one stands up. But there are sev- 
eral late entries ; even after the service 
has begun; even after the confession is 
reached. At each entry Joan’s heart 
seems to turn a somersault, and a tremor 
runs over all her kneeling body. 

“ Is this he ? No — this person’s boots 
creak ! this cannot be he ! ” , 

After several new alarms, when at 
length the First Lesson is reached, her 
fears begin .to subside. For the moment 
she is safe. Not yet -will her eyes be 
pained by the sight* of him ; not yet, not 
until luncheon-time 1 And when lunch- 
eon comes — when, with heart again 
throbbing and tumbling miserably, she 
enters the dining-room, neither is he here. 
Every one else is assembled, and begin- 
ning to eat with the wdietted appetite that 
going to church always seems to engen- 
der. 

A place is laid for him ; therefore he 
cannot be gone aw’-ay ; he must still be in 
the house. But no one seems to miss 
him ; no one takes the trouble to inquire 
after him — that is, not until luncheon is 
well advanced toward its conclusion ; not 
until cold cutlets and salmon have given 
way to jellies and trifle. 

Then, at last, in a lull of the general 
talk, Mrs. Smith Deloraine carelessly — as 
if the idea of his absence had just struck 
her — asks : 

“ Does Anthony never eat lunch- 
eon? ” 

“ Does not he f ” replies his wife, ex- 
pressively, as she leisurely pinches the 
peaches to find the ripest. “Perhaps 
you think that he never goes to church 
either; I assure you that he is mostly 
exceedingly punctual in the performance 


J 0 AN. 


171 


of both duties. What has made him 
quarrel with his bread-and-butter to-daj, 
I can’t guess ; you had better ask him ! ” 

“ If you please ’m,” says the butler, 
striking with polite gravity into the con- 
versation, “ Colonel W olferstan has gone 
out for a long walk; he desired me to 
say, if he were asked for, that he did not 
think he should be back much before din- 
ner-time.” 

“ A long walk ! ” repeats Lalage, lift- 
ing her eyes and shrugging her large 
shoulders; “in this sun! — Well, chacun 
d son gout ! I am ordered to walk, so I 
suppose he thinks that he can do it for 
me!” (with a sarcastic laugh). “I am 
sure he is very welcome to try ! — ^he may 
also eat gruel and dry biscuits for me if 
he likes.” 

Joan does not go to church a second 
time. It is Mr. Smith Deloraine’s habit 
to monopolize his children on Sunday 
afternoons ; and on this Sunday Joan cer- 
tainly does not quarrel with the custom. 
She pulls the school-room blinds half 
down, so as to exclude the strongest light, 
and yet admit all the air ; and drawing a 
little couch up to the window, lies down 
upon it and heaves a long sigh of relief. 

There are ahead of her three good 
hours of solitude, of silence, of soul-and- 
body-calming rest. But are there ? Let 
no one count his chickens before they 
ai-e hatched; or, if he does, at least let 
him make a large allowance for addled 
eggs. Joan has not lain on her sofa for 
more than twenty minutes, with eyes 
sometimes closed, sometimes opening 
with a dim pleasure on the profuse great 
flowers of the violet-colored clematis that 
is looking in at the window ; on the peep 
of cool, pale sky and tall, still poplar-she 
lias only just begun to feel that if she can 
but give it time this prescription of dumb 
inaction will abate and finally kill the dull 
pain in her brows, when there comes a 
knock at the door, and, before she has 
time either to permit or to forbid, the 
knocker enters — enters with the silent, 
light foot and the noisy gown that be- 


speak a woman. Joan turns her head 
slowly, in vexed inquiry as to who the 
disturber of her peace may be. It is La- 
lage. 

“ Are the children here ? ” she says, 
looking quickly round the room. “ No ? 
— that is right I I thought I saw the little 
monsters promenading out-of-doors, which 
is what gave me courage to come up. 
You are resting? ” she goes on, advancing 
into the room, and shutting the door be- 
hind her. “I heard you say that you 
had a headache ! I dare say that you do 
not thank me for disturbing you? Do 
not stir, pray! Well, of course, if you 
insist ! ” 

This is a figure of speech, for Joan is 
very far indeed from insisting. Without 
mij^re ado, or any further compunction, 
her visitor takes possession of Joan’s 
couch, and, stretching her supine length 
comfortably upon it, crosses her feet, and 
arranges the pillow to her liking, while 
the endless yards of her ivory gown lie 
in confused pale waves on the carpet be- 
side her. 

“Are they likely to be away some 
time?” continues Lalage, still thinking 
of the children. “Yes ? — bravo ! But if 
they return unexpectedly, please explain 
to them at once that I hate children, and 
that I have no desire to be climbed up 
like a ladder, nor to be told home truths, 
nor asked indecent questions — the only 
three ways, it seems to me, that children 
ever have of making themselves agree- 
able.” 

“ I will tell them,” answers Joan, re- 
pressing a sigh, at the evidence of an in- 
tention to make a long stay, and walking 
across the room to get a chair for herself. 

“ How well you wear ! ” cries Lalage, 
following her light movements with a not 
ill-natured envy. “ I believe it is because 
you are not married.” 

Joan smiles. 

“Do you tjiink so? And yet insur- 
ance-offices tell you that a married wom- 
an’s life is worth more than a single 
one’s.” 


172 


JOAN. 


“Pooh! ” says Lalago, contemptuous- 
ly; “that only proves that insurance- 
offices never can have been married them- 
selves. I am convinced that I should not 
have gone to pieces nearly so quickly if I 
had remained Lalage Beauchamp.” 

“Are you serious?” asks Joan, for- 
getting her headache, and leaning for- 
ward with clasped hands and grave blue 
eyes fixed in distressed and earnest inqui- 
ry on her companion’s indifferent face. 

“Serious? of course I am!” (with a 
laugh). “ Do you think that a woman who 
weighs fourteen stone is likely to be any- 
thing but serious ? I think that marriage 
is the most colossal imposture in existence, 
so does Anthony. It is the one point on 
which we agree.” 

Joan is silent — a dismayed, lily- 
cheeked silence. 

“In any other undertaking,” contin- 
ues Lalage, showing her handsome white 
teeth in an ungoverned yawn, “one is al- 
lowed a trial-trip — a preliminary canter; 
this, the weightiest of all, is the sole ex- 
ception.” 

Joan has moved her eyes from her 
companion’s face. They are again look- 
ing out of window, as they were before 
her solitude was broken, but they no 
longer take pleasure in, or even see, the 
clematis-blooms, the great old poplar, nor 
the morsel of pretty, faint sky. _ A wave 
of new pain is rolling over her soul : pain, 
not for herself, but for him. Is this the 
goal whither her renunciation has led 
him ? 

“It is a provision for old age, that is 
all one can say,” says Lalage, with her 
little hard, cool laugh. 

“ A provision for old age ! ” repeats 
Joan, echoing each word with slow pre- 
cision, and speaking in a wonder-struck 
tone. Quicker than the jagged lightning- 
flash travels, her thoughts have fled back 
to the opulent summer morning on which 
he and she had sat side by side on the 
warm sea-sands, mapping out a high and 
lovely joint life. Is this what it has come 
to ? And if it is so, has she indeed done 


well and wisely by him? It is the first 
time that ever this sharp doubt has stung 
her heart, 

“I dare say that if I had been an old 
maid I should not have liked it,” con- 
tinues Lalage, wiping with her little fine 
handkerchief from her eyes the tears the 
exaggerated yawning has brought into 
them; “but, at present, to be one is my 
leau ideal of felicity ; a well-to-do old 
maid, with a comfortable sum in the three 
per cents. — not landed property — I have 
no opinion of landed property, all out- 
goings and no incomings — with a good 
chef^ and not a relation in the world ! I 
cannot imagine anything pleasanter.” 

“ No ? ” (in an absent tone). 

“ Or a widow,” says Lalage, in a 
of pensive reflection, trifling with the 
wedding-ring, which has grown too tight 
for her finger. “Widows have not half 
a bad time of it.” ^ 

Joan gives a great start. Her hands 
involuntarily grow clinched, and a river 
of angry carnation pours into her cheeks. 

“ A widow ? ” she says, in a strangled 
voice. 

“ An abstract widow, of course ! ” says 
Lalage, looking with a lazy entertainment 
at her companion’s flushed face; “not 
poor dear old Tony’s! that is sous-eiiten- 
du ! Indeed, as far as appearances go, he 
is much more likely to be my widower 
than I to be his widow ! Has he added 
three slone to his weight in the last two 
years, pray? Does it matter at what 
hour of the day or night Tie gets up? 
Does any one wish to diet him ? ” 

There is a silence. Joan, alarmed at 
and ashamed of her own manifestation of 
emotion, has turned her head half away, 
and is again looking out of the window, 
trying to school her turbid soul into quiet 
again ; to draw calmness from the calin 
sky, and serenity from the still garden- 
trees. 

. “To be well off,” says Lalage, present- 
ly, clasping her hands behind her gold 
head, and staring lazily up at the ceiling ; 

“ that, after all, is the Alpha and Omega 


JOAN. 


173 


whether you are maid, wife, or widow, is 
a bagatelle in comparison! We are not 
well off. No doubt you have heard — one 
always hears these amiable trifles! ” 

‘’I — I — did hear a whisper,” replies 
Joan, stammering a little. 

“ If it were not so unpleasant,” says 
Lalage, while a small, dry smile curls her 
mouth, “it would really be rather comic! 
There are so few things that I have ever 
thought worth the trouble of hating ; but 
ever since I can remember — ever since I 
could walk alone — I have always abhorred 
poverty and everything pertaining to it — 
it has been my one bugaboo. In marry- 
ing Anthony I imagined that I had so 
completely given it the slip ; and now ! ” 
(with a pregnant shrug and expansion of 
the hands). 

“You do not look very poor,” says 
Joan, with an embarrassed smile, and a 
glance at the other’s rich gown ; of which 
a man’s eye would take in only the beauty, 
but a woman’s also the cost. 

“Bah!” cries Lalage, lightly, “one 
must have one’s chiffons. The poverty 
whose fingers come through its gloves, 
and its toes through its boots, is not by 
any means the worst ! ” 

There is a moment’s silence. 

“And so you are poor?” says Joan, 
presently, in a subdued voice and with a 
long, wondering sigh. “Is it possible? 
The very last person with whom I could 
ever have connected the idea of restricted 
means and narrow ways, is — ” 

“ I,” interrupts Lalage, finishing her 
companion’s sentence for her in a differ- 
ent way from what she herself had in- 
tended; “so everyone says! I wonder 
why. I suppose I look expensive! ” 

“ I suppose you do ! ” (in an absent 
voice). 

“ When the old gentleman died,” con- 
tinues Mrs. W olferstan, in an easy, narra- 
tive tone — “ it was only sixteen months 
after we married — I remember thinking 
how lucky we were to come into our king- 
dom so early — and indeed, for his own 
sake, poor old gentleman ” (laughiug flip- 


pantly), “one could not regret that he 
was removed to a world where perhaps 
he might be able to blow his own nose — 
well, as I was saying, when he died — ” 

“Yes?” 

“ It came to light, when things were 
looked into, that, for the last five years, 
he had been tranquilly living at the rate 
of exactly double his income — trying to 
live up to the house, in fact. It had al- 
ways been twice too large for the prop- 
erty. People have no business ” (in a 
tone of indolent indignation) “ to build a 
palace in a kail-yard ; it gives one such 
false impressions. I am sure, when I left 
the Abbey, after that first visit, that I 
quite carried away the idea that they 
were millionaires. Did not you ? ” 

“ I never thought about it ! ” answers 
Joan, quickly and coldly, flushing again 
with indignant pain. 

“No ? — well, I did. I have always ” 
(laughing lazily) “ had an eye to the main 
chance ! ” 

“ And Colonel Wolferstan? ” asks Jo- 
an, resolutely conquering her difficulty in 
pronouncing his name, and speaking in a 
steady, low voice. “Did the blow find 
him quite unprepared? had he no sus- 
picion ? ” 

“ None whatever,” replies Lalage, 
calmly; “if he had, of course I should 
have had too ; are not we ” (smiling iron- 
ically) “ one flesh ? The old woman had 
been perfectly aware of the state of the 
case all along, but would never hear of 
any reduction of expenditure, for fear of 
lessening her own prestige. Did you ever 
hear of such selfishness ? But I am not 
at all surprised; I say of her as Voltaire 
said of the prophet Habakkuk : ‘ Gc co- 
quin WRabakhulc est capable de tout ! ’ 
She is capable de tout ! ” 

Joan laughs, genuinely amused for the 
moment ; but her laugh soon dies, killed 
by the train of disagreeable reflections 
that her companion’s careless speech has 
woke to life. Anthony poor ! Anthony 
roughly divorced from his costly pleas- 
ures! Anthonv struggling to make two 


174c 


JOAN. 


ends meet ! The notion is so incongruous 
that for some moments she remains in a 
bewildered silence ; trying in vain to 
make the idea of this now Anthony fit 
in, in some degree, with that of the old 
one. By-and-by she speaks ; and this is 
the outcome of her meditations : 

“Your moor? have you given that 
up ? ” 

“ Of course,” replies Lalage, serenely ; 
“ have not we given everything up ? — we 
have not yet been reduced to parting 
with our hair or our front teeth, like the 
girl in ‘ Les Miserables,’ but that is about 
tile only depth of destitution that we 
have not touched I As for the moor, I 
confess it cost me not a pang 1 I never 
cared for Scotland ; I dislike the climate, 
the scenery, the life ; no — to be honest, 
that was no great privation.” 

“Not to yoUy perhaps,” says Joan, 
quickly, “but — ” 

“ But to Anthony ! ” rejoins Lalage, 
finishing the sentence ; “ I dare say ! ” (in- 
differently) — “ I never asked him.” 

“ And his horses ? ” pursues Joan, 
with a contained eagerness ; “ surely he 
has not given up his hunting ? ” 

“ Surely he has, though ! ” replies the 
other, with a’ faint, playful mimicking of 
the tragic emphasis of her companion’s 
tone ; “I see that you cannot yet fully 
grasp the idea of our impecuniosity ; it 
took me some time ; but I think I have 
a good firm grip of it now. A couple of 
pair of carriage-horses— one cannot pos- 
sibly do with less in London, so I told 
him, and he saw the justice of it — com- 
pose our whole stud ; hunters as well are, 
of course, out of the question.” 

“ How he must miss them! ” says Jo- 
an, in a low voice, with an involuntarily 
compassionate inflection, addressing rath- 
er herself than her visitor. 

“Of course,” (placidly), “he never 
says anything ; I dare say he will get a 
mount now and then I ” 

Joan is again stupidly silent. Pity, 
indignation, bewilderment, half a dozen 
other ingredients, go to make up a pain- 


ful thought- jumble ; a sort of mental res- 
urrection-pie. 

“ If any person has a taste for making 
a martyr of himself,” says Lalage, pres- 
ently, in a comfortable, leisurely voice, 
“ I am the last to prevent him ! person- 
ally, I have no turn for martyrdom : I 
have the meanest opinion of hair shirts 
and lentile pottage ; I should have cut 
but a poor figure among the early Chris- 
tians ; ‘ Eat the fat, and drink the sweet,’ 
is, and always has been, and always shall 
be, my motto ; but if any one else pre- 
fers to eat the thin and drink the sour, 
why, let him, in Heaven’s name, say I ! ” 
(expanding her hands with her favorite 
gesture). 

“But surely,” cries Joan, eagerly, yet 
puzzled, “ it can be no question of 'prefer- 
ence ; it must be necessity, not choice ! ” 

“So one would imagine, would not 
one?” replies Lalage, with a dispassion- 
ate air ; “it shows how much one knows 
about men ! ” 

“ Of course,” says Joan, hesitatingly, 
divided between a keen curiosity and 
most anxious interest on the one side, 
and the dread of appearing intrusive on 
the other — “ of course, when I speak I am 
drawing a bow at a venture, for I know 
none of the circumstances of tlie case ! ” 

“ Do not you? ” says Lalage, careless- 
ly ; “I thought everybody did ; well, they 
are soon told ! — it is just this, that if he 
would but consent to sell the Abbey, we 
should be no worse off than our neigh- 
bors: we should not be Eothschilds, of 
course, but we should be able to pay the 
butcher, the baker, and the candlestick- 
maker, and leave a good margin besides 
for our little pet sins ; can you fancy any 
one hesitating ? ” A moment later, as 
Joan remains struck with a painful dumb- 
ness, she goes on : “ Perhaps you think 
that he is hampered by the entail ? not 
at all! — he and his father cut it off: he 
can make ducks and drakes of the estate, 
if he chooses; can leave it to you — to 
me — to a lying-in hospital, or a peniten- 
tiary — whichever he likes ! ” 


JOAN. 


175 


“Sell it!” says Joan at length, in a 
deep and altered voice, laden with aston- 
ished distress, as, with a pang of keen- 
est fellow-feeling for Anthony, she lives 
over again vividly in memory that 
black moment when she first heard that 
Dering was to come to the hammer ; 
“but you are joking! — they have been 
Wolferstans of the Abbey ever since — ” 

“Ever since Henry YIII. turned 
out an abbey full of comfortable, fat 
monks for them,” interrupts Lalage, 
suavely; “yes, I know. Well” (laugh- 
ing), “ the matter lies in a nutshell : the 
monks turned put for them, and now 
they must turn out for somebody else ! — 
it is what one sees every day! what can 
be simpler ? ” 

Joan has been looking at her compan- 
ion during the last sentence; trying in 
vain to keep out of her eyes the wonder 
and repulsion that will stream into them. 

“And have you succeeded?” she 
asks, in a rather choked voice ; “ is it to 
be sold?” 

Lalage shrugs again expressively. 

“Not it! he would sell me first! I 
am not sure that he did not tell me so ” 
(with an amused look). Joan draws an 
involuntary breath of relief. “Personal- 
ly I hate the place,” continues Lalage, 
composedly; “that continual booming 
of the sea and sighing among the fir-tops 
makes me feel ready to cut my throat ; 
and in the house I always have an un- 
pleasant feeling of being in church ; but 
for selling purposes it is excellent : ‘ An 
ancestral mansion situated in its own 
park of — ^how many acres? — within easy 
reach of three packs of hounds ; two 
hours by rail from London ; twenty min- 
utes’ drive from a station — a quarter of 
an hour’s walk from the sea ! ’ It de- 
scribes admirably, and I made two or 
three telling advertisements about it 
•which I read to Anthony ; he was so an- 
gry ; I never saw him in such a fury — he 
raged like a lion ! I laughed — I could not 
help it — of course that made him worse, 
but I really could not help it ! ” 


“ It was naturally no laughing matter 
to him! ’’says Joan, slowly anddrj'ly; 
casting down the eyes from which she 
feels that sparks of fire, hotter and 
brighter than an affair not in any way 
personal ought to call forth, are darting. 

“ Of course not ! ” replies Lalage, 
good-humoredly; “one never sees jokes 
at one’s own expense ; I ” (beginning to 
laugh) “ can see no humor in witticisms 
about fat people ; I bear him no malice, 
though he did look as if he should enjoy 
murdering me, and though he did throw 
my advertisements into the fire! — poor 
old Tony ! ” 

Poor old Tony indeed! If decorum 
prohibits Joan from echoing the ejacula- 
tion aloud, at least it reverberates over 
and over again, deep down in her heart, 
like a shouted name that one mountain 
catches from another. 

“ Sometimes,” continues Lalage, with 
philosophy, “ it strikes me that he must 
be a little touched in the head like his 
father. Who but a madman would sacri- 
fice his whole life to the dry bones of a 
dead idea? Will you believe it, that he 
has set himself the task of clearing the 
property and paying oft’ the mortgages? 
— he might just as well begin to pay off 
the national debt at once ; and, for my 
part, I should not be at all surprised at 
his trying; and, meanwhile, what is his 
existence worth ? — he has put down his 
horses, let his shooting, given up his river 
in Norway, and his moor in Scotland! 
Sometimes I am quite in spirits, he looks 
so woe-begone that I think he must be 
coming to his senses ; but no — as soon as 
I begin my delicate little approaches, I 
find that he is as mulish as ever ; how- 
ever ” (with a light-hearted laugh), “ I 
do not at all despair ! I do not disdain 
to take a lesson from the humble gnat, 
and think that by inserting my little 
sting at every hour of the day and night 
I must be ultimately successful. Do. not 
you think so ? ” 

“ I think that there is no doubt of it ! ” 
answers Joan, with a subdued bitterness. 


176 


JOAN. 


“We have not even the excuse of 
having children,” goes on Lalage, dispas- 
sionately; “and, please God, we never 
shall! in my state of health it is most 
improbable !— that ” (with a smile) “is 
the silver lining to my cloud. Fat I am, 
and, alas ! am likely to he ; hut I am not 
likely to he a mother ! I believe in com- 
pensations!— Hush ! I hear the children! 
— ‘the Philistines he upon thee, Sam- 
son!’ I fly ! ” 


CHAPTER Y. 

“ I LIKE him ! ” says Faustine ; says it 
with a decision that at once challenges 
and defies contradiction. 

Two nights and a day have passed 
since the arrival of the Wolferstans. 
Joan’s cheeks and lips and heart have 
had thirty-six good hours in which to 
recover themselves; and pretty well 
righted they are. At least, such is the 
impression that the outside gives; and, 
happily for all of us, none can peep in- 
side the machine and see what tricks our 
wheels and springs are playing us. 

Joan has borne Rupert’s French, and 
Faustine’s music— the two most trying 
items of the curriculum — with about as 
much patience as usual; and now the 
workmen’s bell has long and loud rung 
twelve. The lesson-hooks are slammed 
with joyous disrespect. The children’s 
fidgety limbs are released from their 
chairs, and their insatiate tongues un- 
loosed ; nor has Joan any ostensible rea- 
son for hindering them from lighting on 
the one theme from which she would 
fain have them by all means hold off, 
viz.. Colonel Wolf erstan. 

“ I like him ! ” says Faustine, with 
condescending emphasis ; “he asked me 
whether I would be his sweetheart.” 

“ That was nonsense ! ” says Rupert, 
roughly; “ he has a wife already ; a man 
cannot have a wife and a sweetheart too 
— can he. Miss Dering ? ” 

“Of course not,” replies Joan, grave- 


ly ; hut she stoops her head over her desk 
to hide the twitching of the corners of 
her mouth engendered by this naMe query. 

“ He can, though ! ” cries Montacute, 
whose thoughts have, for a wonder, kept 
up with the current of conversation, shak- 
ing his head wisely, and looking up with 
a knowing old look on his small face; 
“Lord Nelson had — Lady Hamilton was 
his sweetheart ! ” 

“ Then he had not a wife ! ” says 
Faustine, with calm confidence. — “Had 
he. Miss Dering ? ” 

“ But he had ! ” asseverates Montacute, 
raising his little voice in angry indigna- 
tion at having his facts impugned ; “ and 
Lady Hamilton was his sweetheart ! ” 

“ She was not ! ” cries Rupert, to 
whom it is rapidly becoming a party 
question, speaking rudely, and beginning 
to bluster. — “Was she. Miss Dering? ” 

“You are a very naughty boy to say so, 
when Miss Dering says that she could not 
have been ! ” says Faustine, in a tone of 
Pharisaical elder-sister reproof. “Ah!” 
(as a step^ is heard outside, and through 
the door, accidentally left ajar, a figure 
is seen traversing the passage) — “ah! 
there is Colonel Wolferstan ! — we will 
ask him ! ” 

“Do not, for Heaven’s sake, do not! ” 
cries Joan, in a stifled voice, half rising 
from her chair, and stretching out an 
eagerly detaining hand ; hut it is in vain. 
The children either do not hear or do not 
heed. They have precipitated themselves 
through the door, and, throwing them- 
selves on Colonel Wolferstan, are drag- 
ging him — a reluctant victim — into the 
room. Faustine and Rupert are urging 
him with imperative small hands, and 
Montacute by moral pressure. 

He is in the room now : though (hav- 
ing her back to him) she does not see him, 
she yet feels it ; standing tall and silent 
by the door. Silent — for it would be 
useless for him as yet to attempt to 
speak, such is the Babel of loud little 
voices that uplifts itself round him. At 
first it is impossible to detect any separate 


JOAN. 


177 


articulate sound, in the vague hubbub; 
but, after a moment or two, these three 
questions, each volleyed simultaneously 
by a different mouth, assail the listener’s 
ear : 

“Colonel Wolferstan, was not Lady 
Hamilton Lord Nelson’s sweetheart?” 

“Is not it naughty of Monty to say 
so?” 

“A man cannot have a wife and a 
sweetheart too, can he? Miss Bering 
says he cannot ! ” 

“Quite impossible!” rejjlies Wolfer- 
stan, decisively, and with prompt gravity. 

The children are still pulling him in 
determinate] y. Perhaps he lends himself 
a little to their importunities, for he is 
now beside the square baize table from 
which Joan has risen ; and their troubled 
eyes have met. 

“ It was not my fault 1 ” he says, in a 
low voice of apology, speaking with an 
uncertain smile ; “ I did not mean to dis- 
turb you ! I had no thought of coming 
in ! it was their doing ! they made me I ” 

“ It — it — is of no consequence ! ” she 
says, stammering a little ; “you — you are 
welcome — we have finished lessons.” 

As she speaks, she turns quickly away, 
and begins with trembling hands to col- 
lect the grammars, dictionaries, and copy- 
books, which the pupils, in their laudable 
eagerness to arrive at a just knowledge 
of the laws of morality, have forgotten 
and neglected. They have again seized 
upon their guest now, rather perhaps to 
his relief, and have dragged him off to 
the window, to show him Faustine’s slim, 
wedded canaries, and Monty’s scolding 
bachelor bullfinch, who are swinging aloft 
in gay cages. They keep him there, en- 
gaged in desultory conversation for some 
minutes ; Montacute and Faustine each 
tightly clutching one of his hands, and 
Kupert swarming up his leg. 

Joan blesses them for ‘it. For a little 
while she is not aware of what is passing. 
There is a sort of thickness in her hear- 
ing ; but, by-and-by, she is herself again. 
She hears Rupert’s voice successfully lift- 
12 


ed above those of his brother and sister, 
and apparently engaged in giving a frag- 
mentary biography of his family. 

“ My papa is a very nice gentleman,” 
he is saying, boastfully ; “ and he has a 
beautiful dog-cart ; and when he dies it 
will be mine I ” 

“But you would rather have your 
father than the dog-cart, would not you? ” 
suggests Wolferstan, mildly. 

“Y — es ” (very hesitatingly and doubt- 
fully) ; “ but ” (with great alacrity and 
animation)— “ but it is a beautiful dog- 
cart ! ” 

“ There is papa ! ” cries Faustine, 
pricking up her ears at the sound of dis- 
tant voices ; “ he is talking to mamma ; I 
dare say that they are quarreling again ! 
— Monty, let us come and listen! ” 

In a moment they have all sped away 
on this fresh track ; out of the room, 
along the passages, down the stairs, their 
six feet go flying and pattering. They 
take noise and ease with them — they 
leave silence and embarrassment behind. 

Deprived of their chaperonage, the 
two victims, whom they have led into 
this snare and then left to make the best 
of their way out of it again, stand stupid- 
ly mute; Anthony by the window, Joan 
by the table. But for the shrilling of the 
canaries and^the little hopping noise of 
the sleek bullfinch from perch to perch, 
there would be dead silence. Anthony 
is the first to regain the power of articu- 
lation : 

“ So — so — this is your kingdom! ” he 
says, suddenly and awkwardly, snatching 
a hurried glance at the face from which 
he has, for the last two days, been avert- 
ing his eyes as if it were some unpleasant 
sight. 

“ Yes, this is my kingdom ! ” she an- 
swers, laughing nervously. 

Then there is silence again. To both 
it seems as if, in the whole range of lan- 
guage, there were nothing else left to say. 
In their hearts, indeed, are words enough 
and to spare ; hundreds of sentences ready 
dressed to come forth, but every one of 


178 


JOAN. 


them begms with Do you remember ? ” 
“ Dave you forgotten?” and to all such 
utterance is forever debarred. 

Their thoughts are shaking hands again 
in the past. Each knows that the other 
is back with him or her in memory, in 
the Moberleys’ sordid room, where, with 
the snow coldly falling, and the wind 
keening outside, good and evil had fought 
out their fight on the battle-field of their 
rent hearts. But henceforth neither eyes 
nor lips must confess this shared knowl- 
edge. 

Wolferstan has turned his back on the 
clematis and the birds, and is leaning 
against the window-shutter. His eyes 
are resting uncomfortably on her; after 
all, he must learn to look at her. A head 
like a bird’s, a skin like cream and sweet 
fiowers, long limbs like a racer’s, and a 
smile like light 1 — what lovely or noble 
thing is there that has not some likeness 
to or kinship with her? He is thinking 
this with an envious, wrung heart, when 
the necessity for speech of some kind 
again strikes him with urgent force, and 
drives him to this utterance ; an utterance 
not at all intended by him, or approved 
by his deliberate judgment ; 

“ They are kind to you, I suppose ? ” 
he says, abruptly ; “ they treat you 
well?” 

She draws a long breath, and passes 
her hand over her eyes as one that awakes 
from a trance. 

“ Yes,” she says, with almost her usual 
composure, smiling quietly. “lam afraid 
that I cannot poser for an ill-used gov- 
erness. I have not one single slight or 
insult to boast of. I can only hope that 
Faustine will be as slow as she can in 
growing up ; I shudder to see how tall 
she is already 1 ” 

“ They treat you quite like one of the 
family, in fact?” he says, with a bitter, 
short laugh. “ How kind of them ! W ell ” 
(with an impatient toss of his head), “ we 
all know that it is a topsy-turvy world. 
When I think — when I remember — ” 

“ When you remember the old Dering 


days ? ” she says, with a sad tranquillity ; 
“ the days when they were plain Smiths, 
before they had efiloresced into Delo- 
raines ; when I used to ask them to my 
mixum-gatherum parties, and think my- 
self very condescending for shaking hands 
with him 1 Well ” (with a slightly ironi- 
cal smile), “I have my reward. Now 
that the tables are turned, he very seldom 
forgets to bid me ‘ good - morning,’ or 
‘ good-evening.’ ” 

She says it with a matter-of-fact com- 
posure that her auditor is unable to em- 
ulate. Neither voice nor face is well 
under his command. He turns away and 
leans out of the window, round which the 
clematis-sprays and the flushing Virginia 
creeper make a thick and pleasant frame. 
Questions that he could not allow himself 
while he was facing her, he can put now. 

“ Are you happy ? ” he asks, in a sud- 
den quick voice, so low that she can scarce- 
ly catch the words, which seem to be 
addressed rather to the birds and the 
flowers, that, at least, might certainly 
answer “ yes,” than to her. 

She starts a little at the unexpected 
question, and sighs. 

“ Happy ? ” she repeats with a linger- 
ing accent of reflection ; “ ft is a question 
that I never ask myself ; which, I sup- 
pose, is an argument that I am happy — 
as one never asks one’s self whether one 
is alive. I have moderate, healthy work 
that is not disagreeable to me, and that is 
quite within my powers ; I have no pain 
of mind or body; I have no desire to 
hurry or retard the days as they go — quite 
content that they should slide on smooth- 
ly thus to the endt Yes — surely I am 
happy ! ” There is a tone of involuntary 
inquiry and appeal in her last words. 
She has certainly no intention of making 
him the judge of the measure of her con- 
tent, and yet there is a note of indecision 
and questioning in her speech. He makes, 
however, no comment on it. He has 
stretched out his arm far down, to pluck 
from the house -wall a golden - hearted" 
Marshal Niel rose, that, with the giant 


JO AIT. 


179 


clematis and the flaming creeper, makes 
a glorious trinity of colors. “ And you ? ” 
she says, by-aud-by, seeing that he con- 
tinues silent, and speaking with an accent 
of quiet, grave interest. 

He draws his arm in again, and it falls 
inertly to his side. Then he wheels hack 
into his former position, and their sad eyes 
once more meet. 

“Am I happy?” he says, slowly and 
incisively. “ That is one of the questions 
of which one knows the answer before- 
hand ; I have no need to add up and bal- 
ance the items of my felicity ! ” After a 
pause: “You know,” he continues, “that 
I have gone down in the world — gone 
down with a run ; and I do not like it. 
I dislike it extremely ! ” lie speaks with 
a boyish energy of petulance that, for the 
flrst time, recalls to her mind the old An- 
thony. 

“ So did I ! ” she answers, gravely ; 
“ but one grows used to it. I think that 
I should hardly understand how to go up- 
hill now ! ” 

“ You know that the Abbey is let? ” 
he goes on, presently, casting down his 
eyes and speaking in a tone of sullen de- 
jection ; “it has been in our family for 
three centuries and a half, and it has nev- 
er been let before. Do you think that 
that is a bitter pill to swallow ? or will 
one grow used to that, too ? ” 

Joan sighs. 

“ At least it is not sold 1 ” she says, 
while her look wanders ruefully away 
through the open window in the direc- 
tion of her own irrecoverably lost home ; 
“ at least it is yours still ; but — ” (hesi- 
tating a little, and speaking with an ac- 
cent of diffident interest) — “ was it quite 
— quite unavoidable ? was there no help 
for it ? ” 

“We might have gone on living there, 
if we had lived very quietly,” he replies, 
gloomily, not raising his eyes; “if we 
had sent away half the servants and fore- 
gone society; but” (shaking his head) 
“that, of course, was a sacrifice that one 
could not ask of any woman ! ” 


“ I suppose not,” she answers, with 
slow and dubious assent; but against even 
such assent her whole soul rises up with- 
in her in rebellious outcry. 

“So it is let I ” he repeats, with the 
same depressed intonation. “ I am no 
longer Wolferstan of the Abbey; I am 
Wolferstan pure and simple — Wolferstan 
on his own merits, and I find ” (laughing 
ironically) “ that it makes a good deal of 
difi*erence ! ” 

A great wave of compassion rushes 
over her heart as she looks in his aged 
and sobered face, out of which the young 
joUity, the happy, causeless hilarity, fool- 
ish, yet beautiful, too, have forever dis- 
appeared. 

“ I am sorry ! — oh, sorry ! ” she says, 
in a sighing whisper under her breath. 
Then, a moment later, raising eyes in 
which a steady light is burning : “And 
yet,” she says, with a spirited look of 
courage and faith, “as I told you long 
ago, I have always thought that unbroken 
good luck is a doubtful boon to any one ; 
it is what God seldom gives to his choicest 
ones ! ” 

“ Do you think not ? ” says the young 
man. “ Then ” (with a sarcastic accent) 
“I indeed stand higher in his esteem than 
I had any idea of. Do you think ” (smil- 
ing bitterly) “that he has any more 
proofs of approbation in store for me ? ” 

She turns away chilled and discour- 
aged, and, sitting down hastily at the 
table, shades with her hands the eyes 
into which his harsh and scoffing words 
have made the salt tears spring. In a 
moment he 'has crossed the room, and is 
standing beside her, bending over the 
slight, stooped body, on which he no lon- 
ger dare lay a finger — which never again 
dare he take into his empty arms. 

“ Have patience with me ! ” he says, 
in a rough and broken voice; “you know 
that formerly — always — even in the old 
time — I used to turn my worst side tow- 
ard you; indeed, I have a better side, 
though you certainly have no reason for 
believing it ; but, indeed, I have ! ” 


180 


JOAN. 


“I have never doubted it,” she an- 
swers, quietly raising her look, wet, yet 
confident, to his. 

“ A-t least,” he says, with greater ea- 
gerness and animation than she has yet 
seen on his changed and saddened feat- 
ures — “ at least I am no longer in the 
ranks of the drones ; you were always ” 
(smiling wistfully) “rather hard upon the 
drones, were not you? Well, then, I am 
not one any longer; I am a worker — a 
bungling, botching worker, it is true — 
but still I am one ! ” 

“ Are you? ” she says, a ray of pure, 
bright pleasure shooting from under the 
darkness of her curled lashes. “I am 
glad!” 

“ You know,” he says, with a sigh of 
relief, as one that is not used to so inter- 
ested a listener, “ that it is hard to learn 
one’s alphabet when one is grown up. 
Well, that is just what I am doing : I am 
learning my ABO, like a great, over- 
grown dunce. No cockney that ever 
lived all his life within the sound of Bow 
Bells knew less about the management 
of an estate than I did, so late in the 
day as it is — do you know ” (v/ith a 
fleeting smile) “ that I have struck thir- 
ty? — I have put myself to school to my 
own agent. No I ” (seeing her question- 
ing look), “ not at Helmsley ! I do not 
know what heights of heroism I may 
climb by-and-by ; but as yet the wound 
is too raw ; as yet ” (writhing a little 
and flushing painfully) “ I do not think I 
could make up my mind to leave cards 
at the Abbey, and ask permission to drive 
through the park.” 

She shudders, and make^ a silent gest- 
ure of assent ; and he goes on : 

“You know” (smiling again rather 
sorrowfully) — “ it seems as if all my sen- 
tences began with ‘ you know,’ does not 
it? But, indeed, you do know, or at 
least you did, nearly all that there is to 
know about me. You know that I 

have a good deal of land in shire. 

Well, there is the scene of my labors. I 
am living in a little house in an out-of-the- 


way pai-t of the world, where there is no 
society of any kind to distract me, and I 
am at work all day, and every day — out 
and about from morning to night, and 
when I come in, thank God, I am so tired 
that I fall asleep like a dog ! ” 

He has flnfshed, and she makes for 
the moment no comment. She would 
find it, indeed, rather difiBcult to do so, 
for the picture he has drawn of his pres- 
ent life, set side by side with that of his 
past, which is standing out so vividly 
and in such glorious gay colors, against 
the background of her memory, makes 
her utterance uncertain and her throat 
choked. After a while, however, she 
gets back her self-command, and speaks 
in an even, low voice. 

“ But,” she says, gently, “ if Mrs. 
Wolferstan found the dullness of the Ab- 
bey so unendurable, I do not quite see 
how she is bettered by the condition of 
things you describe ? ” 

For a moment he looks puzzled and 
at sea ; then he turns away his head and 
speaks in a formal parrot-tone, as if it 
were a lesson learned by rote : 

“ Oh, you misunder^and me ; L'alage 
never accompanies me. It is — it is — not 
at all in her line. You know that she 
never was fond of the country ; no, I am 
quite alone.” 

He says it in a matter-of-fact voice, 
without any affectation of pathos, but it 
goes to her heart more than any labored 
J eremiad would have done. Alone, quite 
alone for all his life 1 whether his wife is 
beside or absent from him, equally quite 
alone. There is a silence. The bullfinch, 
with his head a good deal on one side, is 
croaking his little cheerful, hoarse song. 
Joan has replaced her hands above her 
eyes. They make a shady white pent- 
house, under which the eyes themselves 
may be as moist as they please. By-and- 
by he speaks. 

“ Do not be sorry for me,” he says, in 
a moved tone; “indeed, I had no idea 
that you would be so sorry. I do very 
well, and every day now I shall do bet- 


JOAN. 


181 


ter. When first the crash came ” (be- 
ginning to walk up and down the room 
with his eyes on the floor), “ coming as 
it did ” (in a hurried low voice) “ on the 
top of other worse losses, I thought for a 
time that I was going like my father” 
(touching his head). “ These curses are 
sometimes hereditary; but, thank God, 
the cobwebs have cleared out of my brain. 
It was not only the money ” (with a con- 
temptuous accent); “I could very well 
have seen that go if I had had anything else 
to fall back upon — anything at home ; but 
you know ” (sinking his voice) “ that I 
had nothing.” 

Again there is silence, a heavy-hearted 
silence ; when, there being nothing good 
left to say, the only refuge is in dumb- 
ness. It is broken by the sound of the 
returning children’s voices and feet. Here 
they all come ! Here they are, bursting 
into the still room, dancing, quarreling, 
squealing. 

“Mamma was crying,” says Kupert, 
awed yet triumphant. “She pretended 
that she was only blowing her nose. 
Papa often makes her cry.” 


CHAPTER VI. 

Three, four days have passed, and 
Joan and Wolferstan have not met again. 
The occasions on which the governess of 
a house and its men visitors meet are not 
so numerous as not to be easily avoided, 
when avoidance is the object on both sides. 
Luncheon and the drawing-room, during 
the short space of time that elapses be- 
tween the men’s issuing from dinner and 
bedtime, are the only neutral ground on 
which there is any likelihood of their 
coming into contact ; and since the day 
of their meeting, Wolferstan has not ap- 
peared at luncheon, nor has J oan set foot 
in the drawing-room. A week ago this 
would have been to her but a small pri- 
vation. To be found by the entering 
ladies meekly seated in a corner with her 


stitching ; to be civilly nodded to by aU, 
and fitfully talked to by some ; to be the 
mark for the stealthy stares and small 
civilities of such scions of commerce or 
waifs of fashion as Mr. Smith Deloraine’s 
chef or his wife’s face attract to the 
house, have always seemed to Joan joys 
not difficult to forego. Gratitude aloue, 
for the kind-heartedness which would 
fain lure her from the loneliness which 
she in reality so much prefers, has in- 
duced her to bear this melancholy little 
caricature of the pleasures of society. 
And now a motive stronger than grati- 
tude is pulling the other way ; fastening 
her, through the silent evening, to her 
stiff arm-chair and her school-room table. 
Her secession from the company is, as in- 
deed she had foreseen, the occasion of 
much voluble surprise, and of many teas- 
ing questions on the part of the children. 

“Mamma quite expects you really,” 
says Faustine, with condescending reas- 
surance. “ Miss White used hardly ever 
to go down, mamma scarcely ever asked 
her; but she often asks you, does not 
she?” 

“You will have to go down on Sun- 
day,” says Rupert, with grave exultation, 
leaning his elbows on the table, and 
grasping his red cheeks with his hands, 
like an ugly medieval cherub ; “ you will 
lose your dinner if you do not. Oh, I 
wish it was Sunday now ! we are going to 
play ‘ Consequences ’ in the evening ; mam- 
ma says so. When I am a grown-up gen- 
tleman I shall play ‘ Consequences ’ every 
night.” 

Joan shudders. It seems, however, 
that the children’s remonstrances are the 
only ones to which she is likely to be sub- 
jected. No one else appears to take any 
note of her absence. It passes quite with- 
out remark. Before giving it up she had 
held lightly her little glimpse of human 
society, her taste of social intercourse, but 
now that she has let it go she misses it. 
She had called it a tax and a hardship 
while it lasted, and now that it is gone 
she looks back on it with something akin 


182 


J 0 AK. 


to regret. The only variety that she now 
lias — the only ease from children’s les- 
sons, children’s quarrels, children’s point- 
blank questions, children’s mighty mirth — 
is what is to be afforded by her own un- 
easy thoughts. All day long she prays, 
with irritated nerves and chafed temper, 
for the children’s bedtime ; and, when it 
is come, she wishes them back again. 
Their most probing questions, their most 
ear-piercing noises, are preferable to this 
silent school-room, with empty chairs 
stiffly set, with two candles sleepily, sol- 
emnly flaring on the square table, with 
even the cheerful birds asleep, preferable 
to the company of her own thundering 
heart. 

Heavily, heavily the days tread past ; 
each hour stretched and strained, undi- 
vided even by the kindly barrier of night, 
for sleep — worthy sleep, at least — has 
gone from her. Out-of-doors the sun 
shines bravely; the hot wind rollicks 
with the tree-tops ; the little heaven-col- 
ored butterflies flit, and the roses redly 
blow. But scarcely ever now does Joan 
cross the house threshold, though it is 
summer — summer at its ripest and last. 
The unnatural confinement makes her flag 
indeed ; her who has ever been greedy of 
the fresh clean air, who has never shrunk 
from God’s sharpest breezes. But yet 
she perseveres. 

We ask whatever Gods there be, not 
to lead us into temptation. How can we 
expect them to hear us if we ourselv<es 
usurp their functions and lead ourselves 
in? What security has she that on any 
day, at any moment, she may not meet 
him — come face to face with him in the 
garden-paths? Twice from her window 
has she seen him sauntering beneath the 
garden-trees ; once alone, with face in 
dishabille, smileless and careworn; once 
in the possession of the children, dragged 
three ways at once ; roughly caressed and 
fought over by their importunate arms and 
differing wills. For the last few days she 
has lost the power of reading. It is im- 
possible to her to fix her thoughts. In 


the middle of a paragraph she becomes 
conscious that, involuntarily, her own at- 
tention has escaped her ; that she has lost 
the thread of argument or narrative. 
Against her strongest resolves — in despite 
of her most potent efforts — she finds that 
she is listening — listening always — listen- 
ing for a voice, a foot-fall. At any mo- 
ment she may meet him on the stairs — in 
the passages ! At any moment the chil- 
dren’s eager hands may arrest him in pass- 
ing ; may again drag him over the thresh- 
old of her domain. At any moment he 
may again be standing by the window 
framed by the clematis-flowers, and look- 
ing at her with the reluctant dejection of 
his gray eyes. 

Even if otherwise she might succeed 
in forgetting him for a few moments, the 
children would not let her : they are 
always talking of him ; bringing her 
snatches of his speech, analyzing his feat- 
ures, wrangling over their places in his 
esteem, and over his superiority in beauty 
and general attractiveness to their father, 
and their other standards of male excel- 
lence. A dull excitement, pleasureless 
and remorseful, burns, with fire ever 
alight, in pulse and vein ; an excitement 
that slays appetite and wastes flesh, and 
against which common-sense and con- 
science level their arms in vain. 

It is Saturday now ; a sultry, leaden- 
colored Saturday ; and lessons are draw- 
ing toward a close. To-day it seems to 
her that the function has been unusually 
trying. Whether the fault lies in the ir- 
ritability of her own temper which makes 
her sway both less just and more slack 
than is its wont, or in her disciples’ own 
innate depravity, the fact remains. Eu- 
pert has been very naughty, and has 
been discovered poking up with, a long 
sharp stick, secreted for the purpose, Mon- 
tacute out of the depths of a chair where 
he was lying buried — deaf and blind to all 
outer sounds and sights — away with the 
V olscians at Corioli. And Montacute him- 
self has been not quite so good as usual, 
though his wickedness, when compared 


JOAN-. 


183 


vrith that of his brother and sister, is of 
so pale a cast as hardly to merit the name. 
He has insisted on stopping dead short in 
the middle of the daily Bible reading; 
and of consequently bringing the whole 
file to a stand-still, in order to explain at 
great length, with flaming cheeks and in- 
dignant eyes, what the Eomans would 
have done in a similar case. 

The hour of release is now at hand. 
Last lines of exercises are being written, 
last columns of spelling learned ; and Jo- 
an — her attention for the moment not 
claimed — is leaning back in her chair with 
tiredly flushed cheeks and closed eyes, 
when suddenly a quick knock comes at 
the door. Is this the answer to her 
fevered listening ? Is this the sound that 
for five long days her unwilling ear has 
been strained to catch? In a moment 
she is sitting bolt upright again, with 
head turned, and eyes fastened on the 
door. She is trying to give permission to 
enter, but her voice trembles so much 
that she cannot depend upon it. 

“ Say ‘ Come in,’ ” she says, in a hur- 
ried whisper to Faustine ; and Faustine, 
nothing loath, complies. 

The door opens to disclose — not An- 
thony ; why, indeed, should it be he ? is 
anything more unlikely ? — but Anthony’s 
wife. At sight of the children she makes 
a face of disappointment and disgust. 

“You are still in full swing?” she 
says, putting in her elaborate head, which 
is immediately followed by her body and 
her fine lawny gown ; “ I must have mis- 
calculated ; I flattered myself that I 
should have found these lambkins dis- 
missed. — He, my little dears” (holding 
out a prohibitory hand toward Faustine, 
who is confidently advancing), “let me 
beg of you not to come any nearer. I 
assure you that I look much better at a 
distance ; all fine natural objects do ; be- 
lieve me, I am quite real — there is no de- 
ception about me ; but I have a foolish 
prejudice against being felt and pom- 
meled.” 

Faustine stops, abashed by the un- 


wonted snub ; but Kupert calls out lusti- 
ly from his desk, in his boldest, bragging 
voice : 

“Where is Colonel Wolferstan? I 
like Colonel Wolferstan ! ” 

“ Do you, indeed ? ” replies Lalage, 
distrustfully eying her three opponents ; 
“how nice for him I He has gone out 
fishing, but he will soon be back, and 
then you can pommel him as much as you 
please.” 

As she speaks, she draws the chair 
from which Joan has just risen (the only 
elbow-chair in the room) to the open 
window, and sinks composedly into it ; 
having previously arranged a footstool 
for her feet. 

“ My mind is thrown on its haunches,” 
she says, drawing a luxurious long sigh of 
ease; “ do you know that sensation ? You 
will not be surprised at it when I tell you 
that I am fresh from a tete-a-tete with the 
millionaire : I always fall a prey to these 
cTietif unfinished little men : I suppose it 
invigorates them to look at anything so 
large and well-grown. I never went to a 
ball in my life that I was not at once be- 
set by all the pygmies in the room. How 
that I come to think of it, I have never in 
my life been offered affection or admira- 
tion worthy the name by anything over 
four feet high ! ” 

Joan’s only answer is to glance ex- 
pressively toward the children, who are 
listening with wide ears and over- opened 
eyes, in that preternatural stillness as- 
sumed by them when they think that 
they are overtaking something not in- 
tended for them to hear. But Lalage 
pays no heed. 

“ I might be there still,” she says, be- 
ginning to laugh complacently, “ but for 
a delicate stroke of finesse ; really it was 
an inspiration — one can call it nothing 
else ; and you are so good-natured, I am 
sure you will not mind.” 

“ Am I so good-natured ? ” says Joan, 
flushing vexedly ; “ you tell me so, but I 
assure you that I am not at all conscious 
of deserving the accusation.” 


184 


JOAN. 


“ Oh, yes, you are,” replies Lalage, 
lightly ; “ and so am I for the matter of 
that ; hut mine is perhaps of a more pas- 
sive type — more of St. J ames’s kind : 
‘Depart in peace; be ye warmed and 
fed.’ I like to leave the details of the 
‘ warming and feeding ’ to other people.” 

“ But do the other people like it ? ” 
asks Joan, with an indignant inflection ; 
cheeks still hot, and eyes sparkling. 

“If they do not they must leave it 
alone ! ” replies Lalage, with airy good 
temper ; “ but, to return, I am sure you 
do not mind really, considering the straits 
I was in, and that I positively saw no oth- 
er outlet ; I told him ” (laughing again) 
— “ it really was very inventive of me on 
the spur of the moment — that I knew 
that you expected him to go out walking 
with you ; I said that you liked an escort; 
that you were very timid and afraid of 
bulls ; are you ? I dare say that you are ; 
I am ! ” 

Joan does not reply ; perhaps because, 
at the moment, she is, with look and gest- 
ure, dismissing the children ; for whose 
young minds she thinks the present lesson 
in candor and veracity hardly improving. 

They go reluctantly, Faustine last and 
most unwillingly, with slowly-dragging 
feet and ears pricked to the last. 

“ I will not deny, of course,” pursues 
Mrs. Wolferstan, ingenuously, “that it 
was one word for you and two for my- 
self ; but still it was one word for you. 
I think it a thousand pities that you 
should not have more opportunities of 
meeting ! ” 

“ Do you ? ” says Joan, dryly. “ You 
are very good, I am sure.” 

“ You mean that I am very officious,” 
says Lalage, philosophically ; “ at any 
rate, I only do as I would be done by. 
If I were free ” (with a sigh and a yawn), 
“ I should think any one a benefactor 
who manoeuvred a country walk with a 
million and a half of money for me ; but ” 
(sighing) “ no one ever did ! ” 

“And I hope that no one ever will for 
me again,” replies Joan, laughing shortly. 


and trying to get the better of her irrita- 
tion ; “I really am not worthy of these 
golden opportunities.” 

“ I have had my head in the noose,” 
says Lalage, shrewdly, shaking her head ; 
'‘'‘you have not. Take my word for it, 
that far the most tolerable marriages — it 
is a detestable institution at best — but far 
the most tolerable are those in which 
there can be no talk of high falutin^ in 
which nothing is expected of you ; there 
is nothing in the world so fatiguing as to 
be called upon in every-day life for high- 
flying sentiments and emotions that you 
have not got, and could not get for love 
or money ; it is the one thing that makes 
me feel shy and sneaky.” She pauses, 
out of breath, and J oan maintains her at- 
titude of silent listening. “ I never shall 
forget,” resumes Mrs. Wolferstan, present- 
ly, -with a smile of amusement, “how 
embarrassed I felt when, shortly after we 
married, Anthony came to me one day 
with a very long face, and suggested that 
we should try to be all in all to each 
other. He did not pretend ” (laughing) 
“ that it would be easy ; but he was anx- 
ious that we should make the experiment. 
It takes a good deal to put me out of 
countenance, but I was, then. I laughed 
in his face — I really did, out of sheer ner- 
vousness.” 

Joan has turned aside, and affects to 
be occupied in adjusting the canaries’ 
groundsel. 

“I should think that he did not re- 
peat the experiment,” she says in a very 
low voice, and with quivering lips. 

“Not he!” replies Lalage, careless- 
ly; “he has far too much savoir mtre ; 
and besides, he does not like being laughed 
at. You might laugh Anthony out of 
anything — out of a belief in his own iden- 
tity ! ” 

She has risen as she speaks, and is 
walking toward the door. 

“Well, au revoir !'''' she says, gayly. 
“ I have told him to meet you at the gar- 
den-gate ; he has gone to fetch his go- 
loshes” (making a face). “Keep him 


j 0 A]sr. 


185 


waiting as long as you like I What does 
it matter ? — a million and a half of money 
will not be kept waiting often through 
life, you may depend.” 

With a shrug she disappears. 

A quarter of an hour later, Joan is 
walking slowly down one of the park 
drives — around her her squad of dis- 
ciples ; beside her the. escort so ingen- 
iously foisted upon her ; and ahead of her 
three joyful large dogs, who, their lives 
being chiefly spent in the retirement of a 
kennel, have manifested such a robust 
mirth at the prospect of a temporary re- 
lease, as has almost defeated their own 
object and balked all eflforts to set them 
free. They are galloping ahead now, in 
such spirits as does one good to see, sniff- 
ing, slobbering, offering each other mys- 
terious insults. 

Desperately sad as is Joan’s heart, she 
cannot refrain from laughing at the sight 
of Mr. Smith nervously fencing them off 
with small, tightly-furled umbrella, and 
crying, “Down! down!” in timid im- 
perative ; while the dogs, misled by his 
gestures, take them for a challenge to 
play, and gladly accept them as such. 

“ They are not muzzled ! ” he says, 
Sying them distrustfully ; “ are you aware 
of that? Do you think it safe to al- 
low them to go unmuzzled during this 
hot weather ? ” 

Joan is saved the trouble of an an- 
swer, by Monty, who, having been a prey 
all the morning to an arithmetical whin- 
ing, now breaks in with his usual irrel- 
evance. 

“ Miss Dering, there are ten feet and 
fifty toes here ! ” 

“ Are there ? ” says Joan, startled, and 
looking expectantly up to heaven, and 
round about the landscape. “Where?” 

“/mean, that we have them,” he an- 
swers, looking very eager. “ Yours, two ; 
Rupert’s, four ; Faustine’s, six ; Mr. 
Smith’s, eight ; and mine, ten ; and then 
your toes, ten ; Rupert’s, twenty ; Faus- 
tine’s, thirty; Mr. Smith’s, forty; and 
mine, fifty ! ” 


“ Say it again, Monty ! ” cries Rupert, 
in shrill delight. “Yours, two; Miss 
Dering’s, four,” etc,, etc. 

How long this repetition continues 
Joan is hardly aware. She would not be 
sorry were it to be maintained during 
the whole walk, as it makes a cover for 
her own abstraction, throws a shield of 
protection over her thoughts, which, bit- 
ter as they were before, have gained a 
greatly deeper tinge of bitterness since 
her talk with Lalage. Ere long, how- 
ever, she is regretfully aware that the 
topic of the numerical strength of the 
company’s toes has lost its interest; is 
aware also that Mr. Smith is addressing 
her in tones of diffident cheerfulness. 

“ I am very fond of ladies’ society,” 
he is saying with an accent of shy con- 
fidence ; “ no doubt you have perceived 
it by my manner ; I have always much 
preferred it to that of ray own sex; I 
have never had much in common with 
them ; I am no sportsman ! ” 

“No?” says Joan, rousing herself; 
“ then I am afraid ” (glancing in the di- 
rection of her old home, and smiling 
rather sadly) “ that the Dering covers are 
wasted upon you ! ” 

“ Quite so,” he replies, readily ; “ it 
is a reflection that I myself have often 
made; I have never had any turn for 
field-sports, or athletic exercises, and I 
am afraid ” (glancing with timid- appeal 
at his companion’s face) “ that it is rather 
late in life to begin now; is not it? — 
though of course ” (sighing profoundly) 
“lam aware how desirable it would be 
in my position.” 

Joan is heavily silent. A sense of 
Fate’s irony, of life’s crookedness, is 
grasping her heart and pressing upon her 
spirits. On the one hand, this puny 
weakling, weighed to earth by the sense 
of his own good things; oppressed by 
the consciousness of the thorough-bred 
horses he is afraid to ride; of the pheas- 
ants he is afraid to shoot ; of the rivers 
he cannot fish ; and the acres he cannot 
walk over : on the other hand, Anthony ! 


186 


JOAN. 


“ I am sure that I have no desire to 
evade the responsibilities that my posi- 
tion entails,” continues the millionaire, 
presently, in a dispirited voice, switch- 
ing with his little umbrella at the rag- 
wort heads, “ and I hope in time to be- 
come more reconciled to a residence in 
the country ; but, as far as pleasure goes, 
I cannot help thinking that the advan- 
tages of a landed proprietor are a good 
deal overrated ! ” 

They have left the carriage-drive, and 
have been sauntering with the languor of 
August upon them across the park, to 
where a belt of full - foil aged trees is 
throwing its comfortable broad shadow 
on the long bracken and the hot, short 
grass. Joan has sat down, and the oth- 
ers have grouped themselves round her ; 
man, children, dogs. Joan herself is sit- 
ting passive and inert; her indifferent 
eyes fixed on the level landscape about 
her — it is flat as a Dutch cheese — and on 
the lanky chimneys, that, volleying dirty 
smoke, stand along the line of the hori- 
zon. But the children’s active minds can 
be content with no such quiescence. The 
seat they have chosen is beneath a wild- 
cherry tree; and Faustine is collecting 
the little cade cherries, vinegar-sour, and 
the stones picked clean by the birds ; and 
is, with precocious interest, casting her 
own matrimonial horoscope with them : 

“Soldier, 

Sailor, 

Tinker, 

Tailor, 

Gentleman, 

Apothecary, 

Ploughboy, 

Thief!” 

Displeased with the issue which is in- 
variably “ apothecary,” she further con- 
sults the oracle as to what manner of 
equipage will be likely to be hers in after- 
life: 

“ Big carriage. 

Little carriage. 

Dung- cart, 

Wheelbarrow 1 ” 


But as the answer to this query is 
hardly more satisfactory than the other, 
no efforts being able to induce it to be 
other than “dung-cart,” she throws the 
stones away in a pet. 

“ It is nonsense ! ” she cries, angrily ; 
“ a rich lady could not marry an apothe- 
cary, and drive in a dung-cart ! it is a stu- 
pid game ! ” 

“Let us try Miss Dering,” cries Ku- 
pert, noisily, stretching out his hand to 
make a fresh collection. The incantation 
begins again : 

“ Soldier, 

Sailor, 

- Tinker, 

Tailor!” 

They have all gathered round to 
watch the result. The children are lay- 
ing their blond heads together. Even 
Mr. Smith and the dogs have advanced 
somewhat nearer to the centre of inter- 
est. It looks a sociable little encamp- 
ment in the woodland gloom ; and so it 
seems to a passer-by, who is taking a short 
cut through the coppice, from the river 
at the back to the house in front ; a pass- 
er-by with a fishing-rod, a twine of in- 
genious gaudy flies round his hat, and a 
pair of handsome, envious eyes. 

“Colonel WoKerstan!” cries Eupert, 
catching sight of him, jumping up and 
running to meet him, “we are playing 
‘ Soldier, sailor ’ — it is such fun I Miss 
Dering is to marry a thief and have a big 
carriage : it has come so three times I 
Faustine has only an apothecary and a 
dung-cart: she is so cross 1 ” 


CHAPTER VII. 

Day is over now, and Night has taken 
back the reins into her ebon-colored hands, 
though, indeed, in the fair tinting of a 
summer night, there is not much kinship 
with that hue in which we have painted 
our bogy, the devil, and our enemy, death. 


JO AK. 


187 


The children are in bed and asleep; 
J oan visited them a while ago, and, with 
hand shading the candle from their 
shut eyes, marveled inwardly whether 
these silent, flushed cherubs could be in- 
deed the same as the three wakeful little 
demons who, but yesterday, thrust half- 
pence up each other’s noses, and probed 
her with indelicate questions as to the 
amount of her income, and her matri- 
monial probabilities. She has now gone 
back to her domain, and is sitting there 
in the dark, alone and idle. She has 
thrown herself on the floor beside the 
open window, and with arms laid on the 
sill, and head resting upon them, couches 
there in utter stillness. Were even the 
candles alight — could even they see her 
— she would be ashamed to adopt such a 
stricken attitude ; but they are out. There 
is nothing but the comfortable darkness 
that tells no tales, and is surprised at 
nothing. 

Down-stairs they are dancing — dan- 
cing to a piano in the hall. Faintly, but 
yet clearly, the sounds of the oft-repeat- 
ed valse come merrily stealing through 
the shut doors and along the passages. 
Joan does not even lift her heavy head to 
listen. What good news or heart-light- 
ening could any air bring her? An utter 
discouragement of soul is pressing her to 
the earth ; pressing down and slaying the 
gentle valor of her usually steady spirit. 
What is this ugly, chill doubt that, flve 
days ago, began to whisper its sickly 
message in her ear, and is now calling 
and shrieking all day long — all night long 
— out loud in her heart? Has she in- 
deed done well by him ? Has she indeed 
been to him the benefactress that, for the 
last two years and a half, she has so com- 
placently called herself? Was it well 
done — and who but she has done it? who 
but she ? — to thrust him into the arms of 
this woman; under the icy breath of 
whose cold little laugh all his faint 
struggle upward, all his hesitating aspi- 
rations after the spiritual and the ideal, 
wither, perished and death-frozen ; un- 


der whose fostering care the earthy and 
the animal in him will wax to as over- 
grown a bulk as that of noisome snails 
and newts, in a dark, dank place ? Is not 
even her own smirched name but a light 
thing in comparison with the sensual, 
smirched soul with which she herself has 
thrown him into daily — hourly — life-long 
contact ? 

She presses her forehead harder still 
down upon her small wrists, until the 
strong pressure is painful, and pinches her 
lips tight together, to keep in the pain- 
cry that seems as if it must issue from 
them. In this universal uprooting of be- 
lief, this ominous trembling and shudder- 
ing t)f the very foundations of her being, 
a profound distrust of even the purity of 
her own motives flercely assails her. Was 
it wholly and solely for his sake that she, 
with so obstinate a roughness, thrust him 
away from her? Was not there mixed 
with it a morbid pride on her own ac- 
count — a morbid pride that, because it 
could not give all, would give nothing ? 
And now, and now, though she sees his 
wound gaping wide and bleeding always, 
hers must be the very last hand in all the 
world that can offer to stanch it. 

And when he is gone and his suffer- 
ings are removed from her sight, she will 
know that somewehre else they are going 
on always, until the sharpness of pain is 
exchanged for the worse numbness of de- 
terioration. Her tears have come thick 
and scalding, without her knowing it. 
They are flooding her slight arms and her 
little folded hands. Great, straining sobs 
are shaking her slender body and climb- 
ing her throat. They must even make 
her hearing thick, for a low tap that came 
at the door some moments ago has to be 
repeated twice before she hears it. Then 
indeed, in utter haste arid fear, she lifts 
her prone head, and shakes the strands 
of -wet hair out of her streaming eyes. 
Who is it that thus inopportunely seeks 
lier ? — that, in this her time of freedom, 
when she is utterly defenseless and off 
guard, cruelly intrudes himself upon her ? 


188 


JOAN. 


And in what plight is she to meet anj 
curious face ? any prying light ? She will 
make no answer at ail ; and so perhaps 
the unwelcome visitor will conclude that 
the room is empty, and will go away. 

So she lies quiet as any partridge in a 
furrow. But the knock is a third time 
repeated ; and, since it is still unanswered, 
the door opens softly; a river of light 
streams in — a river which does not reach 
her, as she is at the farthest end of the 
room ; and on that river, lit by that sud- 
den flame, a man’s tall figure — a man’s 
inquiring face — make themselves seen. 

“Is there any one here?” asks the 
man’s voice, uncertainly. J oan makes no 
answer. Even had she not resolve*d to 
be mute, that voice, striking in so oppor- 
tunely among her thoughts, would have 
made her dumb. “Is there any one 
here ? ” he repeats, rather more loudly ; 
“surely” (straining his eyes into the 
gloom), “surely I see some one! ” 

Concealment is no longer to be hoped 
for. Joan has risen to her feet. 

“ Yes, I am here ! ” she answers, in a 
voice which she tries to believe is toler- 
ably firm and untearful, trusting to the 
shortness of her sentence not to betray 
her. 

“You are in the dark!” cries An- 
thony in a tone of surprise, advancing 
gropingly with hands outstretched before 
him, a pace or two nearer to her. 

“ So it seems ! ” she answers, trying 
to laugh. 

“Were you asleep? ” he asks, and, by 
the noise that he makes in stumbling over 
an intervening chair, she knows that he is 
still approaching her. “ I knocked three 
times, but you did not answer ! ” 

“Am I wanted? ” cries Joan, hastily, 
evading his question and answering it by 
another ; “ does any one want me? ” 

“ They are dancing ! ” he says, still 
feeling his way gingerly along by the 
table; helping himself on by the land- 
marks of Joan’s desk, Monty’s high chair, 
Faustine’s work-box. 

“And they want me to play for them ? ” 


(in a tone of consternation, raising fright- 
ened fingers to her own face, to feel her 
wet eyelashes and her hot and blistered 
cheeks). 

“No, they do not; they want you to 
dance, they are all dancing; I was the 
only person that was not; that was why 
they sent me, I suppose; I would not 
have come” (in a tone of explanation 
and apology) “if they had hot sent me ! ” 

“ To dance ! ” repeats Joan, in a voice 
of hurried apprehension; “oh, it is out 
of the question ! — quite out of the ques- 
tion ! I — I — I am not dressed ! ” 

“Are not you? — well, of course” — 
(with a nervous short laugh) — “I must 
take your word for that! — oh, thank 
God ! here are the matches.” 

There is a little scraping sound ; and in 
a moment the candles are relit. The van- 
ished light has leaped joyfully back again, 
driving before it the safe, convenient 
darkness. The direction of her voice has 
guided him very accurately. 

They are standing close beside each 
other. There is, therefore, no longer any 
use in feigning. It would be labor lost, 
now that the disfigured face, but now so 
blackly veiled, has sprung into sudden 
clearness beneath his searching eyes. 
She does not even attenipt to turn away 
or cover it with her hands. Her long 
arms hang listlessly down by her sides ; 
and, in a sort of desperation, she lifts her 
swollen eyes with calmness to his. There 
is a moment’s silence. Anthony’s look is 
taking in with a shocked astonishment all 
the details of her appearance: the dis- 
ordered hair — all the more disordered for 
being naturally of the sleek, unfluflfy sort ; 
the swelled eyelids, the crimsoned nos- 
trils and cheeks, and the puckered lips. 
At last, and when she is beginning to feel 
that his scrutiny is no longer endurable, 
and that at any price she must free her- 
self from it, he speaks in a low voice, 
which only its extreme lowness saves from 
the discredit of being shaky and trembling. 

“You were not asleep, then ? ” 

“No, I was awake.” 


JOAN. 


189 


There is anotlier pause ; broken again 
by Anthony. 

“ And is this the way in which you 
generally spend your evenings? ” he asks, 
abruptly. 

“No, that it is not ! ” she cries, em- 
phatically, while a beam of eager light 
shoots out from the depths of her 
drowned eyes; “please do not go away 
with that idea ; do not think of me as such 
a miserably poor creature ; it is not once in 
a twelvemonth that such a thing happens ; 
if you had come yesterday — if you came 
to-morrow — you would find me rationally 
occupied like any one else ; oh, why ” — 
(with an accent of impatience) — “if you 
must coma at all — why did not you come 
yesterday, or to-morrow, instead of to- 
night ? ” 

His eyes are wandering round the 
room, which looks more of a prison and 
less of a bower, now that its plain furni- 
ture, its globes and maps, are indicated 
by the little spires of light of -the two 
composite candles, than when they were 
flooded by the general wash of the royal 
sunbeams. 

“Do you spend all your life within 
these four walls?” he asks. “Do you 
never mix with — (nodding his 

head in the direction whence the sound 
of the merry jigging company rises in 
muffled mirth). 

“ Sometimes,” she answers, evasively; 
“ it is as it happens — ^now and then.” 

“ The children tell me,” he says, speak- 
ing slowly, and shifting his position to 
one in which the fullest light the niggard 
candles give falls upon her, “that formerly 
— until quite lately — ^until a few days ago, 
in fact — you always used to make your 
appearance every evening in the drawing- 
room, after dinner.” 

“ The children have very long tongues,” 
she says, petulantly, with an embarrassed 
laugh. 

“ Tell me,” he cries, stepping yet near- 
er to her, and fixing his gray eyes search- 
ingly upon her, as if he would, in her 
despite, pierce through the poor mask of 


her troubled, disfigured face, and reach 
the verities of her clean soul — “ tell me, 
is it a coincidence, or have I anything to 
say to it ? "We were always honest with 
each other, were not we ? Is there any 
reason why we should not be honest still ? ” 

A tide of carnation, even more pain- 
fully vivid than that which tears and fric- 
tion have already brought there, washes 
over Joan’s cheeks and little throat; but 
she lifts her head spiritedly. 

“ There is no honesty in the matter,” 
she answers, with a quiet dignity; “it is 
a question that you have as little right to 
ask as I to answer 1 ” 

“Then I withdraw it,” he answers, 
gravely ; “ but, all the same ” (shaking his 
head meaningly), “it is not only asked, 
but answered. "Well!” (turning slowly 
away, and beginning to walk toward the 
door), “ you know best — you always know 
best ; except once ” — (lowering his voice 
and speaking quickly, yet emphatically) — 
“ once I am very sure that you did not 
know best I I think that now you know 
it too.” 

He has reached the door. The handle 
is already turning in his fingers, when he 
is aware that she stands again beside him, 
and is lifting her charming face with a 
look of pure friendliness, angel-mild, to 
his. 

“You know,” she says, in a quiet, 
moved voice, “that it is not from any ill- 
will that I bear you ; if I could do you 
any good — if I could be of any use or 
profit to you at any time of my life or 
yours — indeed, I would not spare labor or 
trouble to be so; but you know that I 
cannot — you know, as well as I do, that 
I cannot.” 

For a moment he looks at her uncer- 
tainly without answering; then, taking 
his resolution in both hands, speaks. 

“ You were always a just woman,” he 
says, gravely ; “to other people you were 
merciful, too; not to me. No — ” (shak- 
ing his head) “ I cannot say that to mo 
you were merciful ; but until now you 
were always just — now you are not just ! ” 


190 


JOAN. 


She is no longer looking full and di- 
rectly at him. She has turned away, and 
is standing with her head drooped a little 
on her chest, and her fair hands clasped. 

“ I do not understand you ! ” she says, 
in a low voice. 

“ I have done nothing,” he goes on, 
with gathering excitement, “to deserve 
being skinned and ostracized — will you 
persist ” — (speaking in a hurried, lowered 
voice, while a dull-red wave of shame 
rushes all over his face) — “ will you per- 
sist in confounding me with that most 
unhappy madman, who, not well know- 
ing what he did for raging pain, forced 
himself into your presence like a burglar 
one midnight, two years and a half ago ? 
No ! ” — (seeing her put up her hands with 
a sudden gesture of prohibition and fear) 
— “ no — do not be afraid — I know as well 
as you do, that it is a subject that will not 
bear handling; but, in God’s name, put 
out of your head that it was I ! — it was 
a most miserable madman that had taken 
my shape ! — it was not I ! ” 

“ I know it,” she answers, in a stifled 
and hardly audible voice; “I have al- 
ways known it ! ” 

He draws a heavy long breath, and 
passes his hand over his forehead, and 
the sweep of his smooth hair. 

“ But as far as /—I myself — the real 
I — am concerned — ” he goes on 'more 
quietly but still with a profound and seri- 
ous eagerness, “ what harm, pray, have I 
ever done you ? if we come to reckon up 
accounts,” looking at her steadfastly and 
with a piteous resentment in his eyes, 
“as to which of us had wrought’ the 
other the most woe, I should not have 
much doubt, for my part, as to which 
would come out creditor I It will not do 
to hark back to old times — I know that 
as well as you I Do not tell me ” — (in a 
rough voice of passionate prohibition) — 
“that between us and those dear days a 
door is inexorably shut that not all our 
joint strength can henceforth open ever 
so little. Who, better than I, knows it ? 
But cast one look back into your memory 


— that” (with a half sneer) “will not in- 
jure you — and tell me which of my sins 
it is that has called down upon me this 
galling punishment’s' — to be shunned by 
you — ” (with an accent of indignant mel- 
ancholy) “you, that were ever so toler- 
ant of even the uncongenial and the 
wearisome — to be shunned by even 
you ! ” 

She hesitates in a pained confusion ; 
divided between the impossibility of hon- 
est speech and the cruelty of silence. 
She oscillates so long between the two, 
that he, unanswered, in his impatience 
speaks again. 

“ To which of us, pray ” — he asks im- 
petuously, and with a baffling directness 
— “ do you think that a half-hour spent 
in each other’s company "would be dan- 
gerous ? — to yourself? ” — (with a gentle, 
ironic accent) — “ weU, no ; I think that 
your passionless high soul — that your 
well - governed, quietly - beating heart, 
would come scathless out of a peril a 
good deal greater than that poor one ! — 
Is it for me that you are afraid ? well, 
then, that is my affair ; and I tell you 
that I am willing — most willing — to run 
the risk.” 

She makes a gesture as though she 
would interrupt him ; but he goes on 
hastily : 

“Do you think that, like the Bour- 
bons, I have learned nothing and forgot- 
ten nothing ? — Have these last bitter two " 
years and a half done absolutely nothing 
for me, in the way of control and dis- 
cipline ? Am I still an overgrown infant 
that is not to be trusted to play with fire, 
and out of whose reach must be moved 
every knife with which he could possibly 
do himself a mischief ? ” 

“ It is you that are unjust now,” she 
says, very gently, lifting her brave blue 
eyes — not wet now, but lit by their own 
steadfast light to the restless hashing of 
his — “ I have no distrust of you, nor have 
I shown any ; why should I be in such 
haste to suspect evil where there is none ? 
But ” — (with a long, low sigh, and flush- 


\ 


JOAN. 


191 


ing faintly) — “apart from any question 
of you or me, you must know that since 
— since — well, you know since when — 
society has but small pleasure for me ; 
always, always I am ill at ease, and feel 
as if I had no right to he there ; while 
here ” — (looking slowly round with calm, 
lifted face) — “ when I am between these 
four quiet walls, my past does not trouble 
me ; I know that my father is in God’s 
good keeping; I have nothing but my 
tranquil present to occupy me.” 

“ Tranquil ! he repeats, with a sar- 
castic accent ; glancing meaningly at the 
cheeks which still show traces of her 
tears; “your tranquillity wears an odd 
dress 1 ” 

“It is true,” she answers, with com- 
posure ; “ as the healthiest body ails 
sometimes, so, in the evenest, smoothest 
life, there comes sometimes a spell of 
soul-sickness, and ” — (with a long sigh) — 
“ 1 have had such a spell to-night ! ” 

There is a pause. The door has all 
this time been left ajar; and through it 
is now heard the frow-frow of silk along 
the passage. 

“What I burning the midnight oil 
still?” cries. a rather loud, gay voice, as 
its owner, pushing open the door, stands, 
large and riante^ in a gown too costly 
for her husband’s light purse, and with 
shoulders heaving, as of old, perilously 
far-out-of-her-distanced clothes, in the 
aperture before them. 

“ You here, Tony ? ” — (with handsome 
eyebrows lifted, and a twinkle of amuse- 
ment in her merry cold eyes) — “ so you 
have found out this little Goshen too, 
have you ? I am so sorry, because I know 
that now you will never be out of it; 
and I wanted to keep it as a little private 
Ebenezer of my own.” 

“I came with a message from Mrs. 
Smith Deloraine,” replies Anthony, who 
has come forward to meet his wife, pal- 
ing a little, and trying to place himself 
so as to shield as much as possible Joan 
and her still disfigured face from the 
mirthful keenness of his wife’s look; 


“were not you amused? ” he adds hasti- 
ly. “ Are you going to bed ? ” 

“ Of course I am going to bed ! ” she 
answers, with an honest and unchecked 
yawn. “ I should have been in bed two 
hours ago, if I had not been misled by a 
Will-o’-the-wisp of supper ; some one 
said that there was to be supper. I will 
never believe in omelets again ; after 
all, there was nothing but sherry and 
sandwiches ! imagine sitting up till one 
in the morning for sherry and sandwiches 
— is not it too humiliating? Well, good- 
night I ” — (nodding good - humoredly ; 
then, as she reaches the door, casting a 
diverted glance in the direction of her 
husband) — “turn him out, if he begins 
to bore you ! he is apt to be long-winded 
sometimes — are not you, Tony ? ” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

OiTE after one, the hot days race past. 
The summer that begins with a gentle 
trot, ends with a fleet gallop. Our pleas- 
ures always pass one at full gallop, and 
our pains on all-fours. Would God we 
could know certainly that there were 
otherwhere a world — and that we could 
come at it — where the pains galloped and 
the pleasures crawled ! Perhaps, if there 
were, we too should change our natures, 
and perversely cry “ Stay ” where we 
now say “ Make haste ! ” and “ Make 
haste ” where we now cry “ Stay I ” 

August is nearly run out ; August, the 
last of Summer’s three poor children. 
Even if you amalgamate Spring with her, 
she has but thfee. Alas! how can we 
help heavily sighing, we that are not fox- 
hunters, when we think of how many 
degrees of frost, and feet of snow — of 
how many knife-like winds and stinging 
rains we shall have to wade and fight 
through before we catch sight of another? 
Joan has uneasily wished the days away; 
and her wish, like all our foolish, un- 
thrifty wishes for the annihilation of our 


192 


JOAN. 


scant time, is rushing to its fulfillment. 
The Smith Deloraine party is on the eve 
of breaking up. There is only one whole 
day to intervene, before it melts like a 
snowball on a hob ; before its members, 
brought into casual juxtaposition for a 
fortnight, whirl off from each other, 
north, south, east, west. Joan has wished 
for its breaking up. Therefore she must 
needs be now content. But, when we 
have our wishes in our arms, they seldom 
look either so large or so handsome as 
they did, when we saw them, magnified 
by distance, and mist, standing on the 
far-off mountain-tops of hope. Usually, 
we find some, ugly scar on their faces, 
some malformation in their shape, that 
puts us out of humor with them. Per- 
haps you would say that Joan herself is 
looking a little out of humor with her 
wish, this morning, as she leans, dressed 
to go out, in a wide, coarse hat, and clean, 
scant calico gown, against the school- 
room window-frame. She is running over 
in her mind the incidents of the past three 
weeks ; as once, at Helmsley, she had run 
over those of a somewhat similar space 
of time. Certainly, the disagreeables of 
this present period are by no means in- 
ferior, in either size or number, to that 
of the former one. 

They are walking now in gloomy pro- 
cession before her mental eye. She has 
had five walks with Mr. Smith : one ac- 
cidental ; two quasi-accidental ; two in- 
geniously manoeuvred by Lalage— walks, 
during which he has dwelt with ever- 
growing emphasis, hotter blushes, and a 
more ominous meaning in his pale eyes, 
on his own fondness for ladies’ society, and 
the loneliness and unsuitability of Bering 
Castle for the occupancy of a single in- 
mate. She shudders ; much as she used 
to shudder at the thought of Micky Brand ; 
then laughs. “ What have I done to de- 
serve two such admirers ? ” 

Six times she has come suddenly face 
to face with Anthony, in garden, alley, 
or corridor. Out of those six times, twice 
has he passed her with lowered eyes in 


uneasy haste; twice have the children 
fallen like wolves upon him, and hindered 
her from hearing a tone of either his own 
or her voice throughout the interview ; 
twice he has found Mr. Smith in her 
company, and has passed her with a silent, 
angry bow. 

She has spent five evenings in the 
drawing - room ; five evenings made for- 
ever hot and sore even in memory, by 
the consciousness that pervaded them of 
the existence of a jocose conspiracy among 
the company for throwing her into the 
milhonaire’s society : a conspiracy not so 
patent as to be very ill-bred, or to be- 
come apparent to the dull-witted object 
of it ; but plain as the sun in heaven to 
her ; and resented with an impotent 
wrath that helps her not at all : a con- 
spiracy to which she can plainly see, by 
his sullen brows and averted eyes, that 
Anthony thinks her a willing party. 
Though she is quite alone, she puts up 
her hands to cover her face, as if to hide 
even from the bullfinch’s shy, round eye 
the indignant flush that has stained them 
at this humiliating recollection. Nor are 
her troubles wholly in the past. There 
is one last, worst one still ahead of her ; 
one, in which all the others ‘are to culmi- 
nate. Is not to-day — this last day — to 
be devoted to a pleasure - excursion to 
Bering to see the “ improvements ? ” 

“ For Heaven’s sake make no diflBculty 
about coming ! ” Lalage has cried lament- 
ably overnight; “the children are to be 
of the party, and I know it will be hell 
broke loose, if you are not by to put a 
hook in their noses, and a bridle in their 
jaws ; and besides ” (with a laugh), “you 
are the pivot on which the whole enter- 
tainment turns — is not she, Tony ? ” 

And so it comes to pass that, in the 
fresh and early morning, Joan stands at 
the window, leaden-hearted, waiting to 
bo summoned. 

Monty is ill, and unable to share the 
general festivity. Joan has just bidden 
him good-by, and has left him sitting up 
in his small bed, with one little, feverish 


JOAN. 


193 


arm embracing a basin, and a large Bible 
open at Leviticus before him. 

They are off now — three carriages 
full. 

“Do you mind sitting with your. back 
to the horses? ” cries Lalage, gayly, as she 
establishes herself luxuriously in her cor- 
ner, with air-cushion, dust-cloak, and 
sunshade. “Oh, do say that you do 
not ; when I was a girl, I always used to 
pretend that it made me sick. It adds 
very much to one’s comfort in life, being 
able to feign a few diseases ; there are 
very few from aiigina pectoris downward 
that I can’t simulate at a pinch ! ” 

They are off now. The buggy, with 
the host and Colonel Wolferstan, spinning 
on ahead ; the stately barouche, with the 
hostess, Lalage, Joan, and the children, 
bowling smoothly after; and the wag- 
onette with Mr. Smith, and the odds 
and ends of the party bringing up the 
rear. 

Away they go: the bright harness 
throwing back the morning beams; the 
showy horses stepping out; Eupert 
perched on the box between coachman 
and footman, shouting out pieces of shrill 
information to Faustine inside, Faustine 
holding up her parasol and spreading the 
crisp circumference of her flounces all 
over Joan’s modest calico gown. Away 
they go : a merry young sun, not yet po- 
tent. enough to be feared, is lending his 
own laugh to the close-shorn harvest- 
flelds, and the heavily-clad, green trees. 
Delicate morning airs are ruffling about 
them. Their spirits are unjaded, and 
their limbs untired. But this is at the 
beginning. 

At the end of the twelve miles’ drive, 
things are rather different. The sun has 
ceased to smile, and begun to smite. 
The refreshing gusts have laid down for 
their noonday sleep. The dust has found 
its way up their noses, and their knees 
are growing cramped. 

It is perhaps well for Joan that her 
attention is distracted from pensively 
dwelling on the old recollections and as- 
13 


sociations that each new half-mile calls 
forth, by the necessity of a stringent at- 
tention to Faustine, who, having grown 
tired of the confinement of her position, 
is beginning to jump up and down tire- 
somely on the seat, and to swing her legs 
to and fro, pendulum-fashion, against 
Lalage’s indignant shins. 

“ Miss Dering ! ” cries Eupert, from 
the box, in a voice of great glory and ex- 
ultation, “ Mitchell says that we shall see 
Dering Castle at the next turn. Oh, is 
not it fun ? — Come up here, Fausty ! there 
is plenty of room. — James, is not there 
plenty of room for Fausty too ? ” (appeal- 
ing confidentially to the footman, who, 
indeed, is the same one from whom he 
has imbibed that ignoble rhyme about 
Mr. Lobsky, which Joan has so vainly 
tried to erase from his memory). 

J oan’s heart has sprung to her mouth ; 
her limbs are trembling. For the mo- 
ment she must leave Lalage and Faus- 
tine to fight it out as best they may. 
Her shrieking voice can be lifted in nei- 
ther exhortation nor reprimand. Here is 
the turn! Already they are curving 
round it. In a moment the beloved, rev- 
erend home will have risen upon her ach- 
ing sight. 

“ There it is ! ” cries Eupert, wildly 
excited, pointing with one eager, fat fore- 
finger ; “ James, there it is ! ” 

Faustine has sprung up on the seat, 
and her sharp look is following her 
brother’s. 

“ Is that it ? ” she cries^ in a contempt- 
uous, hold-cheap voice; “it is not near 
so large as I expected! — Why, Miss De- 
ring, you told us that it was such a beau- 
tiful house ! I call it hideous ! ” 

Joan has stood up too. Her blurred 
and misty gaze is hungrily fixed on the 
old, proud dwelling of her race, but she 
does not reply to Faustine’s taunt. Is 
this, indeed, the lovely pile — half feudal 
castle, half old manorial hall — that she 
had challenged all other counties to beat 
for stateliness and comfortable beauty? — 
this, that time and weather had vied in 


194 


JOANS' 




painting with sweet and sober tints ; this, 
that, wrapping its giant iv^y-cloak around 
it, had stood calmly bidding the little pal- 
try years go by ? 

Where, then, is the ivy ? — the wonder 
of twenty miles round — that was wont 
to swathe two of the stout towers, and 
clasped its long and lovely arms around 
the old house’s venerable body, oht of 
which the casement windows peeped, 
and the riotous roses laughed summer- 
long. Never, never again, save in mem- 
ory’s reluctant dreams, will Joan see it 
any more. It is cut dow'n, root and 
branch ; not a twig or a leaf left to show 
that it once was there. Bare, forlorn, 
and naked, the towers rise gray against 
the pale, hot summer sky, shorn of their 
three centuries’ clothing; while out of 
the castle’s disfigured face the great, new 
windows grin like glaring false teeth in 
a venerable head, flashing back in malig- 
nant mirth the sun’s rays from their acres 
of plate-glass. 

Joan sinks back again upon the seat ; 
and, turning her head as far as possible 
away from her fellow-traveler’s observa- 
tion, fixes her brimming eyes on the roll- 
ing wheels — on the whirling dust — on 
anything that is not Bering. She no 
longer heeds — she does not even hear any 
more of the children’s jibes and com- 
ments. All through the park as they 
smoothly roll beneath the familiar stag- 
headed oaks, and the glorious spread of 
the mighty beeches, she is schooling her 
spirit to bear the purgatory that the next 
few hours will bring. If this first experi- 
ence is to be a sample of the rest, it will 
indeed be a sad day’s pleasuring for her. 
She has hardly got the better of the lump 
in her throat, nor has dared to trust her 
voice in any utterance ; when, having 
passed through the last gate, they draw 
up at the grand entrance, to find that 
Mr. Smith, who has taken advantage of 
a short cut across the park to get ahead 
of them, already stands waiting, small, 
nervous, but hospitably triumphant, to 
receive his guests under the lofty arched 


and scutcheoned door, whence the obso- 
lete Bering lion still looks down grimly 
ironical. 

The moment that they come to a 
stand-still, the host advances, hastily 
pushing himself before his own new 
mammoth footman, and, while his near- 
sighted eyes appear to see no one but 
Joan, he stretches out his hand to her, 
crying with tremulous gayety, “Wel- 
come back to Bering! ” 

From the brisk fatness with which 
this greeting shoots out, it is clearly an 
impromptu fait d loisir concocted dur- 
ing the twelve miles of wagonette. But 
she to whom it is addressed is incapable 
of any answering thanks. Blinded by 
tears she stumbles silently past him into 
the hall; only to see that it has been 
new-floored with Minton tiles instead of 
the beloved old oak boards on which her 
childish feet had played and her girl’s 
feet so often lightly danced. 

“ Thank Heaven we have reached the 
promised land at last! ” cries Lalage, 
sweeping in with a large sigh of relief 
and weariness; “certainly we have not 
had much manna or many quails by the 
way ! I could dispense with the manna, 
but 0 Mr. Smith! we look to you for 
the quails! — do you think — oh, do you 
think, that they are likely to be nearly 
roasted? ” 

But not even this broad hint as to 
the state of her appetite can induce Mr. 
Smith to depart from the programme 
laid down in his own mind— to see the 
improvements first, and then to luncheon. 
Not all Mrs. Wolferstan’s heavy sighs and 
broad innuendoes can persuade him to 
alter this order of succession. If there 
can be any gladness in such a case Joan 
is glad. Since it must be, by all means 
let it be at once, so that by-and-by it may 
be over. The children, feeling that the 
bands of discipline are entirely relaxed, 
and that a general and agreeable condition 
of license and anarchy has set in, are al- 
ready half over the house. Miles away 
one hears them; opening unintended 


J 0 AX. 


195 


doors, riding down banisters, teasing long- 
suffering footmen, chivying wrathy cats. 
It has begun. Joan is now well into the 
purgatorial flames. The first door, sticky 
with new paint, is thrown open. 

“This was the late owner’s private 
room, I am told! — am I not right? I 
thought I could not do better "than follow 
his example ; so now it is mine ! ” 

And so on through the rooms. Joan 
is not even able to indulge in the poor 
luxury of silence. It is to her judgment 
that all the appeals on her taste, that all 
the calls are made ; into her ears that all 
the stream of complacent volubility is 
poured. By-and-by a sort of stupefac- 
tion comes to her aid ; a dim feeling that 
this is all a phantasmagoria. This is not 
her old home, this melancholy mummer 
masquerading thus gaudily in its Brum- 
magem new clothes ; her old home in the 
richness of its sober coloring, with its an- 
cient stately fittings, so suited to its age 
and character that they seem to have 
grown part of it, not to be severed with- 
out mutilation — with its hangings faded 
a little by the action of the many sum- 
mer suns that have filtered through the 
pleasant casement-windows upon them, 
but mellow and harmonious as the voice 
with the instrument. 

The feeling strengthens as she walks 
bewildered through the rooms in their 
new possessor’s wake; her feet treading 
on fire-new carpets, the brightness of 
whose sprawling flowers and scrolls gets 
up and boxes the ears; seeing herself 
centupled in hundreds of Titan mirrors ; 
her eyes Aching with the monotonous 
miles of white paint and tons of gilding 
that everywhere meet them. Now and 
again, indeed, the siglit of an old friend 
— a picture — a Grinling Gibbons chim- 
ney-piece — a gem by Cellini — too palpa- 
bly valuable to be relegated to the lumber- 
room, even by the most commercial taste 
or the grossest intelligence — make her 
start and shiver as one that meets a white- 
sheeted ghost, but for the most part a 
kind of numbness comes to her aid. This 


is a house, and that was a house, but 
there seem to be no threads in her mem- 
ory to tie the two ideas together. It is 
nearly over now. They have returned to 
the rooms whence they first started. Mr. 
Smith has been called away to give some 
order ; Joan has sunk down on a chair by 
the tabl§ — both new, of course, and with 
gilt legs — and is leaning her burning fore- 
head on her hands ; her whole being seems 
to be one dull ache and bruise. She has 
only one idea that has any sharpness or * 
distinctness in it, and that is, that she 
must not cry. 

“Do not think me unfeeling,” says 
Lalage, who has subsided into a lounge, 
her laugh extinguished, and her features 
solemnized by hunger and boredom, “but 
self-preservation is the first instinct of 
our nature, and it is really that, and noth- 
ing else, that prompts me ; but ” — (lower- 
ing her voice) — “ do you happen to know 
whether this little monster bought your 
grandfather’s cellar as well as everything 
else? If he did not” — (with a heavy 
sigh and a shrug) — “ I think he is quite 
capable of poisoning us with cheap cham- 
pagne and grocers’ sherry at luncheon, 
and so I tell you fairly.” 

But at luncheop Joan’s soul is drain- 
ing so bitter a cup that it is of small mo- 
ment to her what stamp of drink or what 
manner of food passes her bodily lips. 
They lunch in the small dining-room in 
which she and her grandfather used al- 
ways to dine when they were alone, or 
had gathered only a few intimates around 
them. It is travestied, indeed, and har- 
lequinized, like the rest of the house ; 
but alas ! the billows of change that have 
swept over it have not done their work 
thoroughly enough. One or two old land- 
marks still sadly emerge, as they say that 
the church-steeples of a drowned ' city 
show sometimes, on quiet summer even- 
ings, above the whelming waves. The 
old familiar-shaped leather has, indeed, 
vanished from the walls. The portrait 
of Mr. Smith’s mother, in cameo. Holy 
Family, and satin gown — a sort of Bow- 


196 


JOAN. 


dlerized Mrs. Moberley — now hangs as a 
grotesque and mismatching pendant to 
that of her grandfather ; but yet his pict- 
ure is still here, so is his great-armed and 
high-backed chair, which seems even yet 
to keep his faint and ghostly spirit-shape 
in its embrace. Her own chair, too, Mr. 
Smith has, with timid insistance^ begged 
her to resume, observing that “ it will 
be like old times to her,” and she has 
obeyed with a limp compliance. 

During the whole time that the enter- 
tainment lasts — it appears to her very 
lengthy, and, indeed, Lalage’s appetite is 
not a thing to be appeased in a hurry — 
she sits, feeling as if the whole thing 
were a caricature — a dreadful burlesque 
of her sacred past. She is once again at 
the head of this familiar board — once 
again there is around her a sound of gay 
talk and bubbling laughter ; once again 
her lifted eyes meet the smile and look 
of a vis-d-vis. But what smile ? What 
look ? What vis-d-vis f It seems as if 
her anguished gaze could not help ever 
raising itself from the little cJietif reign- 
ing king, lost and swallowed up in the 
embraces of his great chair, to the lofty- 
statured, beloved dead king on the wall 
above him. 

Perhaps it is as well for her — though 
at the time it seems as if it were the last 
drop in an already overbrimmed cup — 
that the children seem resolved to con- 
tribute their little mite toward making 
her day’s pleasuring at Dering an inef- 
faceable one from her memory ; that 
Faustine appears determined to follow 
the example of many of the great and 
good of all ages, and leave this life by 
the door of a surfeit ; and that Eupert, 
casting to the winds all sense of the fit- 
ness of things, is devoting his young en- 
ergies to the task of moving the strange 
footmen from their wonted gravity, by 
many occult practical jokes, such as he 
has often tested the efficacy of upon 
James and William at home. Not even 
with the end of luncheon do Joan’s trials 
touch their end. Fresh logs are indeed 


to be thrown on the purgatorial flames. 
It is only the scene of her endurance 
that is to be a little changed. What has 
been already done inside tlie house has 
now to be done outside. 

It is now the turn for the gardens and 
their improvements ; nor will their owner 
take any denial. He is obliged, indeed, 
willy-nilly, to take a denial in the case of 
Mrs. WWlferstan, who declines to be of 
the party, with a robust and emphatic 
certainty, as to her own inclinations, 
which precludes pressing. 

“ You shall tell me aU about it when 
you come back,”- she says, w'ith an ironi- 
cal laugh, as soon as the host’s back is 
turned ; “ as for me, I am already im- 
.proved off my legs ; Nature craves re- 
pose ! — you do not want me to chaperone 
you, do you? ” (turning to Joan), “no? 
— I thought not ; I assure you that Tony 
is quite as efficient, and has a very good 
idea of effacing himself judiciously at the' 
right moment — have not you, Tony ? ” 


CHAPTER IX. 

The heavy, windless afternoon is 
wearing itself away ; surely, surely, the 
end must be drawing nigh. It seems to 
Joan as if she had been walking for many 
hours, walking along with the same sense 
of unending . ache, of bruised bewilder- 
ment, of recognition and non-recognition, 
as had marked her progress through the 
house. Is her memory indeed so weak that 
she feels as if she scarcely knew which 
way to turn in these familiar, unfamiliar 
grounds, about which she could have con- 
fidently made her way, though blindfold, 
three years ago ? Or is it that the old 
landmarks have been so wholly and care- 
fully removed and obliterated that she 
has a sort of blank half-feeling of never 
having been here before? Haltingly, 
and with wandering, puzzled eyes, and 
short, hard breaths, she has asked, one 
after one, for her old friends — the great 


Joan. 


197 


double box hedges, old, past the memory 
of man, and Trhich so stoutly kept off the 
winter winds from the quiet path which 
led between them, that, in the keenest 
January blast, one might pqce there in 
ease and warmth. • They are gone — 
stubbed up — as being a harbor for 
slugs. 

The few peacocks, too, and the flame- 
shaped cypresses that spired darkly heav- 
enward along the terrace walk. Yes, 
they too. It is the same throughout. 
Where the old bowling-green once spread 
its shaven smoothness a fire-new range 
of bald and glaring vineries rises ; where 
the stiff parterres spread their sober va- 
riety of sweetness, and the lime-alleys ran, 
there is now one universal blazing same- 
ness of scentless bedding plants in scrolled 
and twirly beds; of fat-fleshed foliage, 
abominations intersected here and there 
by paths of gaudy-colored gravels. Where 
the velvet lawns stretched their centuries 
of finest turf, great plantations of pert 
new shrubs, each with a label bigger than 
itself, now raise their half foot of scanty 
verdure above the ground as they might 
round a new-built suburban villa. And 
through them all Joan has walked as one 
in a dream, stupidly smiling now and 
then ; assenting, commending ; Mr. Smith 
on her right hand, Anthony on her left, 
and the children everywhere. 

But surely she is awake now. Surely 
this weather-worn, lichen-patterned wall 
— this old, wrought-iron gate are familiar, 
most familiar to her tired eyes. In a mo- 
ment they have passed through the gate, 
and are standing in a still and ancient gar- 
den, that reminds one of nothing so much 
as of Mrs. Browning’s “Lost Bower.” 
Walls, partly of natural rock, all over- 
grown, overdraped with ivy and loveliest 
creepers, snap-dragons growing on the 
top, and lightest grasses bowing in the 
wind. But no wind gets inside to the 
favored flowers and cabbages, to the riot- 
ous plenty of the faint monthly roses and 
the kingly blue larkspurs, and the striped- 
coated carnations. A sense of saintli- 


ness, sunshine, holy old-fashioned inno- 
cent leisure over the whole place. 

“This at least is unchanged!” says 
Joan, in a slow, soft voice, and drawing 
a long, sighing breath ; “ this is as we left 
it.” 

“For the present,” cries Mr. Smith, 
brisldy ; “ quite for the present. You 
know that, as they say, Eome was not 
built in a day. We are coming to it by- 
and-by — by-and-by.” 

“What I is not even this to be spared ? ” 
cries the girl brokenly, turning her tragic 
eyes wofully round, on the lovely mellow 
walls, on the scented glory of the old- 
world flowers — survivors from an elder 
day. % 

“Do you wish it to remain un- 
changed?” asks Mr. Smith, with sur- 
prised empressement. “ I had no idea — 
of course, if you express the slightest de- 
sire — but” (in a rather mortified tone) 
“ I had imagined that the improvements 
had met with your approbation. You — 
you — gave me that impression.” 

“Do not you think,” she answers, 
turning toward him with a smile, gentle 
and civil, if steeped in melancholy, “ that 
this one shabby corner will make a good 
foil for the rest of the new magnificence ? 
But, after all” — (slightly shaking her 
head) — “ it is your taste that is to be con- 
sulted — not mine! — after to-day” (shiv- 
ering a little) — “ I shall probably never 
see the place again.” 

She has sat down on a broken old 
stone bench, between whose rifts and 
clefts little stray seedling flowers and 
baby-trees are merrily growing. Her 
hands fall idly on her lap ; and, up wafted 
on the wings of the cabbage-rose scents, 
her spirit sails away into the past, of 
which this old garden-plot is verily and 
indeed a piece. She is brought back to 
the present by the voice of Mr. Smith. 
She looks round. 

Anthony and the children have disap- 
peared. A momentary bitterness nips her 
heart. Is this his idea of effacing him- 
self judiciously at the right moment? 




198 


J Q A N". 


lias ho, too, become a party to this dis- 
mal Jest ? She glances apprehensively at 
her companion. He has seated himself 
on the bench beside her — his own bench, 
after all. His little freckled face is for 
the moment as white as his eyelashes; 
and there is a purpose — hesitant, indeed, 
and uncertain, but still that frightens her, 
in his usually purposeless eyes. 

“ It seems a pity,” he is saying, trem- 
ulously, snatching a thief-like glance at 
her every now and then, to see how she 
is taking his remarks — “ you — you — were 
always so much attached to the Castle, I 
understand! It — it — it — seems a pity 
that you — you — should not resume your 
residence here.” As he comes this 
last clause he turns his back completely 
upon her, and so sits in an agony of ner- 
vousness, gnawing the top of his stick. 

“ And turn you out*? ” she ansAvers, 
with a fine, cold smile, and a little rally- 
ing air that would have batfled a bolder 
Avooer than this ; “ that would be too un- 
grateful, after your having so hospitably 
entertained me ; would not it? ” 

There is a hot, uncomfortable silence. 

Joan’s eyes are roving uneasily round, 
trying to discover to what point of the 
compass Anthony and his tormentors 
have disappeared — waiting only to be 
sure, in order to make a desperate rush in 
that direction. Before, hoAvever, she has 
ascertained this, her companion speaks 
again. 

“It — is — is very large,” he says, in a 
low and quivering voice, still turning to 
her only the back of his head ; “ if you 
remember, I have always said that it Avas 
too large for one person ! — perhaps it — it 
—it— might nofebe too large for two ! ” 

“ Do you think not ? ” she says, hastily, 
and rising. “ Ah ! ” — (with a sigh of re- 
lief) — “ there is Colonel Wolferstan ! he is 
so good-natured ; but we must not allow 
the children quite to monopolize him, 
must we ? ” 

So saying, she begins to walk Imrried- 
ly along the garden-path, in the direction 
where she sees Colonel AYolferstan at 


I length emerging from among some dis- 
I tant bushes of late red currants, Avhich 
the children, with the unerring instinct 
of their kind for food — unerring, even 
after such a luncheon asFaustine’s — have 
sniflfed out. It is the first time since their 
coming together again under one roof 
that she has ever gone willingly to meet 
him. By the time she reaches him vexa- 
tion has steeped her face in as lovely a 
dye as if all the carnations in the garden 
had given each other rendezvous in her 
cheeks. She lifts her eyes, full of annoy- 
ance and reproach, to his. 

“Where have you been?” she cries, 
irritably. “Why did you go away? — it 
is not fair to break up a party ! ” 

Anthony is silent ; but the look that 
answers hers makes her at once turn away 
her upbraiding glance, as she feels with a 
miserable, uneasy excitement that after 
all it is only out of the frying-pan into 
the fire ; out of a very small frying-pan 
into a very large fire ; and that there is 
no rest for her anywhere. She begins 
to talk again, quickly, and a little at ran- 
dom. 

“ Wliy should not we go back through 
the wilderness? ” she asks ; “ there used 
to be a wilderness beyond this garden ; 
it is there still; I see the tree-tops- wav- 
ing. We used to get to it through that 
door ” (pointing to a small arched one in 
the wall). “Ah! ” (going up to it), “it 
is locked.” 

“If you like — if you wish,” says Mr. 
Smith, in a crestfallen voice, having, in 
the mean Avhile, come up Avith them, “ I 
will go and inquire for the key ; no doubt 
some of the gardeners have one.” 

Ho one tries to dissuade him, and he 
sets off at once on this self-imposed er- 
rand. Ho sooner is he out of sight than, 
“ WTiy, here is the key ! ” cries Faustine, 
who has been occupying herself in apply- 
ing an inquiring eye to the key-hole ; in 
pulling out loose bricks, dislodging old- 
established wood-lice, and tAveaking little 
cranesbills by their long noses ; and now, 
in her pryings, has suddenly discovered 


j 


JOAN. 


199 


the missing article, snugly lying crusted 
with iron-mould in a convenient cranny. 

“ I will run and call Mr. Smith back,” 
says Rupert, officiously, beginning to suit 
the action to the word. 

“ You will do nothing of the kind ! ” 
cries Wolferstan, sharply, making a de- 
taining clutch at the child’s shoulders; 
then, becoming aware by Rupert’s face 
of the angry peremptoriness of his own 
tone, he adds, in a gentler key : “ I mean, 
my boy, that it is not worth while ; he 
will soon find out his mistake and over- 
take ns! ” 

So saying, he fits the rusty key into 
the lock; it turns unwillingly, with a 
grinding sound ; the disused hinges give 
way sulkily, and they all step out to- 
gether into the gr-een tangle beyond. 
Once there has evidently been a path 
through it — a path where two might 
walk abreast ; but Nature, who, leave 
her to herself but a very little while, 
quietly takes back man’s thefts, repairs 
the rents he has made in her cloak, has 
been taTting back — mending here, too. 
As they pass along, the grasses coolly 
trammel their feet. The brambles hold 
out to them the tart plenty of their crude 
berries; and the disflowered brier-rose 
catches at them with long fingers, crying, 
“ Stay ! ” Around them the honeysuckle 
ambitiously climbs the trees, blowing its 
late trumpets, safe and high, aloft ; and 
the briony ties hazel to haAV in loving 
green bonds. Above them the trees have 
laid together the friendly variety of their 
leaves, the sycamore its broad platter, 
and the horse-chestnut its fan, in league 
to keep out the sun. But at present there 
is no sun to keep out. Surely he was 
liere — but now! How long is it since 
the clouds, sweeping up from their unseen 
chambers, have clean abolished his smile ? 

On the woodland path there is now no 
play of gamesome lights, no frolic of little 
shadows. Instead, everywhere, one same 
verdurous gloom. A tempered light, as 
when day dies ; a silence, as of poppied 
sleep. Of all God’s strong winds there is 


not one awake. No lightest gust either 
sighs or laughs, either rings the bluebell’s 
silent chime, or puffs away the little hawk- 
weed clocks. The birds, too, are dumb. 
By August, their talk is mostly outtalked, 
their madrigals outsung ; but to-day, not 
even a garrulous finch twitters,’ or spar- 
row cheeps. A hot and drowsy stillness 
weighs, lead-heavy, upon all. Hardly 
less still than the winds — hardly less 
silent than the song-birds — the young 
man and the young woman step along 
together, side by side. 

Joan has taken off her hat, and loosened 
her little kerchief from about her milk- 
white throat. "Whether it bo from the 
thunderous weight of the air, or the op- 
pression of the long day’s ignoble suffer- 
ing, she feels as if an iron band were 
tightly clasped around her brow. All day 
her spirit has been stretched upon the 
rack; broken on the wheel. All day she 
has been, with stiff, tight smiles and com- 
bated tears, helping at the desecration of 
her own altars. All day long she has 
been clapping hands and applauding at 
her own execution. Now, at least, she 
may be silent. She need no longer com- 
mend the ingenuity of the thumb-screw 
that dislocates her fingers, or of the boot 
that crushes her foot : now she may rest. 
This rest, indeed — fevered, hard-pulsed, 
thundering-hearted — is as much like real 
rest as the repose that narcotics give a 
sickly man is like the royal slumber that 
God gives a healthy child. But, after all, 
an opiate sleep is better than none. Why 
should they talk? — they, to whom all 
speech worthy of the name is forbidden ! 
If, indeed, their intercourse were likely 
to be prolonged and stretch over any con- 
siderable space of future time, it would 
be fit to practise themselves in the neces- 
sary falsity of civil, light talk and empty 
phrase. But is it not the last day — the 
last day of all? — is not this the very last 
walk, during which they are ever likely 
to pace together the green-kirtled sum- 
mer-land? they who once thought that 
they should walk — tender hand in tender 




i' 


200 


J 0 A ]S’’. 


iiand — to tlie distant undreaded grave! 
It is through no fault of their own that 
they are now in each other’s com- 
pany. 

Joan’s conscience is at ease on that 
score. It is fate and chance that have 
thus brought them helpless and uncon- 
senting into transient contact. Nor is 
there anything of genant or embarrassing 
in this tete-d-tete^ which is broken every 
two or three minutes by one or other of 
the children, returning from snatching 
excursions into the brake: Faustine to 
exhibit a bramble-scratch ; Eupert to 
brag of the pheasants he has started ; 
both to ask loudly for arbitration on 
some wrangled point. Joan does not 
know how long they have thus together 
dumbly trod the wood’s lush intricacies — 
how long this quiet trance — not itself 
exactly of pain, but with pain for back- 
ground, pain for foreground, pain for 
horizon — has lasted, when it is broken 
in upon by a sudden, kingly noise, not 
made or makable by man, or any of his 
engines ; the sound of a loud and angry 
thunder-clap. It has been growling and 
sulkily muttering in the distance all the 
afternoon, but nobody has heeded it. The 
children come running back in scared 
haste pushing through cornel and brier. 

“ 0 Miss Dering,” cries Faustine, her 
small, bold face already paled with fear, 
“did you hear the thunder? I am so 
frightened 1 — let us go home ! ” 

“ Mitchell says that there was a man 
struck by lightning the other day,” says 
Eupert, encouragingly ; “he was as black 
as a coal all down one side ! ” 

“ We had better get out of this as 
quickly as we can,” says Anthony, rous- 
ing himself, and looking round at the 
close-growing tree-trunks — the interlaced 
branches — the thick leaf roof ; “we could 
not well be in a worse place ! ” 

“We must be nearly through the 
wood,” says Joan, waking up again to 
present realities ; “ five minutes will bring 
us into one of the park-drives.” 

They all begin to walk quickly in the 


direction indicated ; the children, indeed? 
take to their heels and run. No one 
speaks ; nor is there in all the wood one 
lightest sound. It seems as if every bird, 
and beast, and insect, were listening with 
held breath for the sky’s next loud speech. 
Joan’s memory has misled her as to dis- 
tance. It is twenty minutes, instead of 
five, before they emerge into the open. 
Just as they do so, there comes a mighty 
rolling crash overhead, as if God were 
driving his chariot along the clouds, and, 
before you can count one, a lovely sudJen 
arrow of deathful light has leaped into 
their eyes. 

■ It is come and gone, and they are in 
the dark again. For by this time it has 
grown very dark — darker than at the 
middest of many a clear-faced summer 
night. The clouds — but now piled on 
the horizon — quiet, sun-kissed Alps — 
have rushed into one pitchy mass — a can- 
opy of ink ; out of which, momently, the 
lightning springs in blinding glory. Faus- 
tine has covered her face with both hands, 
and so stumbles on ; Eupert, with his 
brag and his high courage extinct, is be- 
ginning to blubber, and to clutch at the 
out-held hands of Joan and Anthony, as 
they hastily drag him along. 

“ Thank God we are out of the wood! ” 
says Joan, cheerfully. — “ Hold up, Eu- 
pert ! — we shall soon be home now ! ” 

But, though she speaks confidently, her 
heart sinks a little as she sees how much 
farther off than she had imagined rise 
the sheltering towers of Dering, a good 
half-mile away at the least. They have 
reached the park-drive, and are posting 
breathlessly along it, through the alternate 
dread noise and dreader silence, when, 
in one of these latter intervals of ominous 
quiet, they become aware of the sound 
of rolling wheels and trotting hoofs com- 
ing up behind them. They turn to see 
an empty coal-cart advancing at its heavy 
horse’s best speed on their tracks. As it 
draws near, Anthony steps into the mid- 
dle of the road and hails it. 

“ Are you going to the castle ? — be- 




J 0 A^. 


201 


cause, if so, will you give these children a 
lift?” 

No sooner said than done. On ordina- 
ry occasions Faustine would have looked 
upon it as very much below the dig- 
nity of Miss Smith Deloraine to be wedged 
between two grimy men on the tilt of a 
coal-cart, behind a shaggy-heeled cart- 
horse; but fear has taken all the glory 
out of her, as it has taken all the brag 
out of her brother. She would be thank- 
ful for even the apothecary and dung- 
cart prophesied her. 

“ That was a good move,” says Joan, 
with a sigh of relief and ended respon- 
sibility ; “ they will be in before the rain 
comes ! ” 

As she speaks — in the twinkle of an 
d;he whole world is lit up by one 
sudden green glare, intolerably lovely, 
against which the castle’s four towers 
are cut out clean and fine as cameos ; and, 
at the same instant, a giant rain-drop 
splashes on the girl’s cheek. Its success- 
ors are not slow in following it. Down 
they come, straight and numberless, with 
such a spiteful force and fierceness as if 
they were being shot from skyey guns ; 
and mixed with them bullets of hail that 
bruise and bite. 

They have taken to the grass again, so 
as to make a short cut to the house. 
Joan has given her sole protection against 
the weather — her flimsy sun-shade — to 
Faustine. The mighty rain patters and 
smites on an absolutely undefended 
head. 

“ This is bad for you,” says Anthony, 
as with stooped head and blinking eyes he 
butts against the storm; the hail-stones 
pelting his eyelids, and driving into his 
mouth the moment that he op(3ns it. 

“ Do you think so ? ” she says, cheerily, 
though blinking too, and gasping a little ; 
“I do not mind it! — it is — it is much 
better than the improvements ! ” (with a 
breathless laugh). * 

They are nearing a knoll, clad with 
low scrub, and out of which, here and 
there, a morsel of bare rock shows itself 


disconnected and unexplained, among the 
general green flat of grass and bracken. 

“ There used to be a sort of cave here,” 
says Joan, indistinctly, with her mouth 
full of hail-stones, and her eyes screwed 
up to peer across the opaqueness of the 
tempest ; “ had not we better shelter there 
awhile?” 

As she speaks, she redoubles her 
speed ; and, outrunning him, is lost for a 
moment from sight round a small project- 
ing bowlder that has advanced its gray 
foot among the fern. 

In a moment he has overtaken her. 
Close above their heads there is a dread 
hurly-burly as of thousands of great rocks 
being angrily trundled down a giant hill- 
side. An opportune splendor of flame 
shows them the friendly moutli of a natu- 
ral hole in the mimic hiU-side ; and, push- 
ing aside the wet and streaming creepers 
that overdrape it, they enter, and find 
themselves at peace. 


CHAPTER X. 

Half an hour has passed, and the 
storm is beginning to wear itself out. 
The majestic clamor in the heavens, that 
made all meaner noises small, is becoming 
less incessant. The two young people less 
continuously see eace other’s face peril- 
ously glorified by that superb dread shin- 
ing ; but the rain, on the other hand, has 
redoubled its vigor. The huge drops have 
merged into one colossal wet sheet, which 
fills the air and makes the earth one rush- 
ing river. Hitherto neither of them has 
spoken. It would, indeed, have been 
useless, as neither could have heard the 
other’s voice in the midst of the ear-rend- 
ing warfare overhead. 

Anthony has stood at the mouth of 
the cave, watching the weather, and Joan 
has sat down on a bit of rock, which, hav- 
ing fallen at some remote period from 
the roof, now makes a comfortable seat. 
Their refuge is But a shallow natural ex- 


202 


JOAN. 


cavation, sloping backward. Only the 
front part is high enough to allow of a 
tall man standing upright in it, hut it is 
daintily floored with fine sand ; and in the 
chinks of its rougli walls — stained here 
and there hy a trickle of water — delicate 
aspleniums flourish, and tufts of stout 
heartstongue hang. Anthony has just 
put his head out between the drenched 
fluff-halls and streaming tendrils of the 
traveler’s-joy, that makes a curtain before 
their retreat, and taken a look at the sky. 
Then he draws it back again, and ad- 
vances toward his fellow-sufferer. 

“It will be over in ten minutes,” he 
says, confidently. 

“ And wo are neither of us black all 
down one side,” answers Joan, lifting her 
small flower-face with a smile to his. 
She has raised both hands to her head, 'in 
the endeavor to restore it to its usual 
robin-like sleekness, but as most of its 
hair-pins have disappeared, and it is un- 
manageably wet, this is a task beyond 
the power of even her deft fingers. The 
band of iron seems loosened now from 
about her brows. The spirits of the storm 
seem to have set hers free. It is no longer 
bowed and groveling on the earth. 

lie stands for a few moments in si- 
lence, discomfortably following the quick 
movements of her slim hands with his 
envious gray eyes. Then — 

“Now tell me,” he says, feverishly; 
“ I have been waiting till we could hear 
the sound of our own voices. All through 
the wood I was trying to bring myself to 
ask you, but I could not — I can now. 
Have you any piece of news for me? — 
anything to tell me? — quick! ” 

Her arms are still lifted, her fingers 
still straying among the soft strands of 
her bright hair. 

“Any piece of news?” she repeats, 
in a puzzled voice. 

“ I obeyed orders,” he goes on, with 
a dry laugh ; “ you cannot say that I stood 
in your light. I effaced myself judicioxis- 
ly, did not I ? ” (with a bitter mimicking 
of his wife’s tone). 


She understands now. She lets her 
arms fall with a petulant gesture into her 
lap. A flush as faint as the earliest dawn- 
birtli paints the complete pallor of her 
cheeks. 

“Was the bribe big enough?” he 
goes on, harshly. “ I know that it is the 
biggest that could be offered to you.” 

Her little white chin sinks forward 
on the wet breast of her calico gown, 
whose poor fabric the great rain-drops 
have saturated. She shakes her head 
with a movement of negation and dis- 
taste. 

“ It is no bribe now.” 

“Then it is not to be?” (his breath- 
less words treading pantingly on the 
heels of her answer). 

She straightens her slender bo^, and 
draws up her proud young throat, while 
the pale dawm-blush deepens into the 
angry ruddiness of a winter after-glow. 

“ I must, indeed, have come down in 
the world,” she says in a compressed, low 
voice, “ before it could have seemed 
probable to any one.” 

He draws a deep, long breath, as one 
reprieved. 

“And besides,” she adds, after a mo- 
ment’s thought, in a voice so low as to 
be scarcely audible, “ there is the same 
bar that there always was against my 
marrying any one.” 

“Which is none at all,” he breaks in 
contemptuously. “ Does that rotten cord 
still hold ? I know that it held gallantly 
once ” — (with a sneer) — “ but is it pos- 
sible that it holds still? Well, some fine 
day it will snap. It is out of Nature that 
it should not ; and whoever fights against 
Nature must, sooner or later, go to the 
wall; sooner or later” — (with a strained 
smile) — “you will go to the wall! It 
may not be to-day, or to-morrow, or the 
day after that, but on some to-morrow ” 
— (still keeping that hard, tense smile) — 
“I shall certainly hear — my ears are al- 
ways listening for it — Joan Dering is 
married ! ” 

“ And you will say, ‘ I am glad,’ ” she 


JOAN. 


203 


says, trembling a little, but raising her 
patient blue eyes to the passionate 
trouble of his — his that used, in the old 
time, to brim over with such sheer jollity 
and life-delight; “‘being her true, hon- 
est friend, I am glad.’ ” 

“ It would be the best thing that 
could happen to you ! ” he says, grudg- 
ingly ; leaning one vigorous shoulder 
against the low rock-wall, while his cov- 
etous regard still holds and thrills her ; 
and the rain sings and swishes down- out- 
side, and the creeper-curtain shuts them 
close from the outer world — them two 
alone together ; “ brave as you are — none 
braver — I know that — high as you hold 
your head — you are but a weakly thing 
to be let go at large in this big, bluster- 
ing world, with no one to give or take 
buffets for you ! ” 

“ Am I so weakly ? ” she says, with 
the same flickering smile hovering about 
lier tender mouth ; but yet with a little 
air of spirit and resolve ; “ so you told 
me three years and a half ago — there ” — 
(nodding slightly in the direction of the 
castle) — “but you see that I am still 
alive ! I still hold my head above water ; 
my feet have a firmer grip of this earth 
than you think for.” 

“ Three years and a half! ” he repeats 
with an accent of slow reflection. “ Ah ! 
but” — (looking at her piercingly) — 
“ what sort of a three years and a half 
have they been ? ” 

For a moment she winces as one sud- 
denly stabbed, but instantly recovers her- 
self. 

“ I have suffered ! ” she says, steadi- 
ly, “ but I have enjoyed too ; these suf- 
ferings were like sharp rocks here and 
there ; the pleasures like fine sand strewed 
all over my life. One is very ungrateful,” 
s'le says, humbly; “one remembers the 
Jirge pains, but one does not remember 
all the flowers one has smelt — all the 
jokes one has laughed at — all the deep 
sleeps and pleasant dreams one has had.” 

“You are philosophic,” be says, 
harshly; “but suppose that the next three | 


years are like them, and the next three 
again after that ? how then ? ” 

She shudders perceptibly, and for a 
moment covers her face with her hands ; 
then — 

“ That "is impossible ! ” she says, stead- 
ily. “ Did you ever hear of any one hav- 
ing his head cut off twice f ” 

There is a silence. The rain’s rush 
has waxed fainter ; the storm is bearing 
its royal clamor and its beautiful death- 
arrows otherwhere. 

Anthony has again restlessly walked 
to the cave’s mouth. He has stretched 
out his handsome head, so that the rain- 
drops may fall upon it and assuage its 
hot ache. They are glistening crystal 
bright on his brown locks, as he turns 
and again approaches her. It is such a 
confined space that two steps bring him 
quite close to her — so close that, if he did 
but stretch out his arras ever so little, 
they would encompass her lithe body and 
its limp cotton sheath. His face is white 
and his lips are twitching. 

“All the possibilities of life are ahead 
of you, as they are behind me,” he says 
in a bitter, low voice. “ Take my advice 
— do not throw them away next time — 
do not cut a second man’s throat for his 
own good; for my part, I doubt its al- 
ways answering ; when next some poor 
fellow tries to light a fire, by which he 
may warm himself all his days, in the 
depth of those angel-sweet, ice-cold eyes 
of yours — in God’s name let him ! ” 

She has risen to her feet, trembling 
more than any wind-shaken leaf on an 
autumn tree-top. Passion-pale, they stand 
facing each other. 

“ I' have been on the rack all day,” 
she says, in a voice of concentrated suf- 
fering and reproach ; “ are you deter- 
mined not to let me get off it ? are you 
resolved that this day shall be marked by 
every kind of pain ? What do you mean 
by twitting me with my cold eyes — ray 
quietly-beating heart ? It is not the first 
time ! What do you mean, I say, by it ? 
If you had any mercy — if you had any 




204 


JOAN. 


common Immanity— you would be glad- 
most glad for my sake that they are cold ! 
What better gift than coldness,” she cries, 
lifting passionate hands and anguished 
eyes to the low rock-roof above her, “ has 
God now left in all his treasury to give 
me? ” 

So saying, she slips hastily past him, 
and, thougli the rain is still falling sharply 
from the departing clouds, passes reso- 
lutely out through the streaming travel- 
er’s-joy, into the drenched grass beyond. 
What can he do but follow her ? In swift- 
est silence they walk along. The syca- 
mores empty their broad platters on their 
heads, as they, pass beneath; and the 
bracken wets them almost waist-high. 
To traverse the soaked grass is like wad- 
ing a river. 

Before they have gone ten paces, 
Joan’s thin summer boots are so full nf 
water that they rattle as she goes, and. 
on her whole shivering body there is not 
one dry stitch. But what does it matter ? 
What does any present discomfort or 
future rheumatism matter, in comparison 
with that suffocating tete-d-tete f 

It will soon be ended now. In ten 
minutes she will be safely housed in the 
midst of her securely tiresome daily en- 
tourage^ hedged from all perilous encoun- 
ters by Faustine’s exacting calls for at- 
tention, and Eupert’s monopolizing arms. 
But will she? They have reached the 
castle, only to find that their fellow-trav- 
elers have set off home without them. 

“And left us behind?” gasps Joan, 
in a voice of disbelief and consternation ; 
“ impossible ! ” 

“ It you please ’m,” says the butler, 
with explanatory sweetness — (he knows 
all about Joan, and has the contempt for 
commerce and the feeling for cidevants 
so common among good-class servants) — 
“ if you please ’m, the ladies thought it 
_ best to take advantage of the first break 
in the storm ; the buggy is still here, and 
Mr. Smith Deloraine left word that he 
hoped Colonel Wolferstan would be so 
good as to drive Miss Bering home in it ! ” 


Joan sinks down on a chair, regardless 
of the injury that her wet contact is in- 
flicting on Mr. Smith’s capitonne blue 
satin — sinks down with a feeling of de- 
feat and checkmatedness. Of what use is 
it to fight — to draw one’s wooden sword, 
and set one’s lathen spear in rest, w^hen 
man and beast, woman and child, storm 
and tempest, conspire to combat against 
one ? 

They are off now. Joan has been 
partially and capriciously dried at the 
kitchen-fire. Her shoulder-blades indeed 
stiU feel sticky, and there is a general 
sense of adhesiveness about her whole 
costume ; but her boots no longer rattle, 
nor do cold and trickly rills race down 
the nape of her neck. Away they go, 
with the speed naturally resulting from 
a feather-light carriage, and a free, fresh 
horse homeward turned. The very na- 
ture of the vehicle is against her, neces- 
sitating, as it does, close proximity, and 
excluding even the poor chaperonage of 
a groom’s presence. Away tliey go, ar- 
row-swift, through the dusking country. 
For the evening draws on apace. The 
sky’s ill-humor is ended. The clouds that, 
a while ago, shocked together with such 
a fury, have now drawn peaceably apart 
again. Along the horizon they quietly 
lie in lofty ranges, vaporous Andes, that 
in this uncertain light look nigh as solid 
as real mountains. The dust is asleep ; a 
great glistering rain-drop hangs on each 
sharp hedge-row thorn. There is a pleas- 
ant sound of falling and pattering among 
the full-leaved trees. 

The slight noise of the large, light 
wheels, the quick plash of 'the iron hoofs 
through the new-made puddles, are the 
only sounds that break the complete 
evening silence. Very little speech passes 
between the young man and the young 
woman. They used to be so garrulous 
when they were together! — chattering 
lengthily, like happy children. Once he 
has formally asked her if she were cold ; 
and once she has restlessly inquired how 
much farther they have to go. A fever- 


JOAN. 


205 


ish, longing haste to be at the end — to 
have it over — mixed with a bitter, con- 
tradictory pang of regret, as each fresh 
mile-stone flies past, is making Joan’s 
blood painfully burn and prick along her 
veins, and her sad heart heavily throb. 

As for Anthony, he is away — back in 
the past. How often in the old time, 
during her visit to the Abbey, did they 
two thus drive together, nnchaperoned, 
servantless, in sweet and sociable solitude 
through the darkling summer-land ! She 
was full as near to him then as she is now. 
There was then no reason in heaven or 
hell why he should not load her with the 
all-tender names, which now, forbidden, 
sinful, harshly commanded back, crowd 
to his parched lips. 

There were tlien no unseen arms of 
fate and iron law interposing between 
them, and waving them • aloof. Then 
neither God nor man forbade that he 
should gather this sweetest lily and wear 
it, year out, year in, upon his heart. And 
yet, then he had with cold and cautious 
content addressed her as “Miss Dering,” 
had flooded her patient ear with facile, 
banal talk, and egotistic anecdotes about 
himself. It seems incredible ! The storm, 
as I have said, is gone ; but we can plainly 
tell that elsewhere it is still pouring out 
the vials of its wrath and dealing its bolts. 
None of its thunder is indeed now ever 
so faintly heard ; but now and again all 
the eastern heavens are lit up by one 
broad, reflected glory — one tranquil, yel- 
low lustre of sheet-lightning, as if for a 
noble moment the gates of God’s palace 
had been rolled back, and the inner splen- 
dor allowed to come pouring through. 

“We look as if we were driving 
straight into heaven!” says Joan, in a 
voice of tremulous admiration, flxing her 
wistful eyes on the lovely phantasmago- 
ria that, even as she looks, vanishes and 
is swallowed up. 

‘.‘Do we?” he answers. “Nay” — 
(with an accent of profound melancholy) 
— “ I think that some time ago we missed 
the way there.” i 


These are the last words that they 
speak. The drive has come to its con- 
clusion; the good Horse stands still ; the 
miry wheels no longer lightly turn. The 
hall-lamps flash out upon them ; the ser- 
vants come to the door. Silently Wol- 
ferstan has lifted her down, and without 
a word she turns and begins to drag her 
stiff limbs through the vestibule, up the 
staircase, along the corridor. 

Surely the flght is ended now — now 
that this last hard day touches its end. 
Surely to-morrow’s sun will rise upon a 
safe blank, as free from danger as from 
possible joy. She has reached the school- 
room, and crossed its threshold before she 
perceives that he has followed her. Two 
lit candles stand on the table, but there 
are no other signs of occupancy. It is 
empty. 

“I have come to say good-by,” he 
says, in a matter-of-fact vqice. 

“ You go early ? ” she says, hastily and 
with an artificial smile. 

“At 8.30.” 

“ Then of course it is good-by ” (hold- 
ing out her hand). ^ 

He takes it, but the expression of his 
face is scarcely one of farewell. 

“ It is good-by,” he repeats, “but it is 
not the long, vague good-by you think ; it 
is only good-by for a week. Do you 
know ” — (his whole face breaking up in- 
to a happy laughter) — “that the man to 
whom I was going for the first has thrown 
me over, and Smith Deloraine has asked 
me to come here instead? ” 

“And you are coming?” (breathless- 

ly)- 

He nods, “ Yes.” 

She makes no sort of rejoinder. Again 
that feeling of overpowering panic, of ir- 
retrievable defeat, has mastered her. 

Have not gods and men joined hands 
in one bond against her? The battle is 
not over, after all ; perhaps it has scarce- 
ly begun. Bad as to-day has been, it has 
been only the Quatre-Bras of which the 
"Waterloo is yet to follow. 

“So it is scarcely more than good- 


206 


JOAN. 


night,” he says, softly ; his fond and cov- 
etous eyes taking in all the pitiful details 
of her appearance — small, fagged face, 
the dark, tired stains under the heavy 
eyes, the pathetically drooped red mouth, 
the forlorn gown clinging to the pretty, 
willowy figure. 

“ A w'eek passes by like a flash, doesn’t 
it? but yet it is good-by too. Joan — ” 
(her disused name coming strangely to 
her ears in a whisper, as the young man 
turns from white to red and from red to 
white) — “ Joan — whose fault is it that we 
need ever have said good-by at all? ” 

Perhaps he is resolved that to that 
tough question she shall give no answer; 
for at the next clock-tick her stammering 
lips are close shut by his kisses, and her 
heart is beating out its agony on his. For 
one moment she lies quiet — bewildered 
soul and worn-out body in that forbidden 
shelter ; then, with a rush of recollected 
anguish, she wrests herself away from 
him ; and looking at him for a moment 
fixedly, yet with a wildness as of one 
whose wits are wandering, she staggers 
away. 

The day’s pleasuring is ended. Faus- 
tine’s profuse tears for her ruined flounces 
— only partially dried by the assurance 
that the wash-tub and the mangle will 
restore them to their original stifl[* ele- 
gance — have had their current stemmed 
by slumber. Montacute, physicked into 
convalescence, has fallen asleep despite 
all his nurse’s remonstrances, with L-evit- 
icus for pillow ; his last waking word be- 
ing a posing question, which has brought 
the blush to his attendant’s cheek, as to 
one of the more subtile niceties of the 
Mosaic law. 

Most even of the grown-up members 
of the expedition have gone to bed early, 
fagged and cross. Joan’s duties are end- 
ed. Till eight o’clock to-morrow morn- 
ing her time is her own. She is in her 
bedroom, standing before her glass, star- 
ing steadfastly, as if it were a new sight, 
at the face which that glass gives back ; 


at the privet-white cheeks, at the horri- 
fied blue eyes looking out at her in frosty 
dismay, at the pinched, set mouth. 

“ Whither am I going ? ” she says out 
loud, stonily watching her reflected lij)s 
as they stiffly move. “ Whither am I 
dragging him ? ” Then clasping her lifted 
hands above her head, she stumbles for- 
ward, and, with an utter collapse of all 
restraint and self-government, sinks upon 
the floor, and so, thro-ugh the watches of 
the night, lies all along in deepest abase- 
ment before God. Is not a bed too soft 
for such as she ? Are not the hard boards 
a titter place for her to pour out her tears 
and penitential groans ? The still hours 
walk over her with their soundless feet. 
Through the wide window there steals 
now and then a little wakeful gust, that, 
sighing softly awhile about the dusky 
room, sinks like all else to sleep again. 

“ Oh, love ! ” she says aloud, burying 
her burning face on her out-flung arms, 
while great, tearless sobs make all her 
prostrate body shake and quiver — “oh, 
poor unstable love ! with all my high talk 
and large professions, what have I ever 
been but a curse and a cruelty to you? 
Was not it enough for me to have blun- 
dered away your happiness ? must I 
tempt you to taint your honor too ? ” 

Her voice dies away in utter broken- 
ness, arid for a while there is silence. 
Then, by-and-by, she speaks again. 

“There is only one poor kindness 
now left me to do for you ! ” she says, 
more collectedly; “to take myself at 
once wholly and forever out of your 
life; it is the last, meagre gift I shall 
ever give you; let me at least give it 
promptly.” 

Then she is once more dumb; only 
now and again a catching of the breath, 
a dry, hard sob, tell that to her through 
all the sleepy hours sleep’s solace never 
comes. Once before has she kept a 
vigil in love’s name ; on that austerest 
winter night at Ilelmsley when she had 
first heard of her fickle love’s early faith- 
lessness. Even so then had she fought 


J 0 A^. 


207 


and wrestled all niglit ; pushing with use- 
less, tender hands against Fate’s iron 
doors, and with the cold dawn victory 
came. Thus it is now. She has raised 
herself from her attitude of despair and 
abasement. She is leaning against the 
casement, no longer sobbing or moaning ; 
tranquilly watching the coming of the 
young new morn. There is as yet no 
earliest sun-peep, and, nevertheless, all 
over the face of Nature there is a look of 
expectant surety. When he is climbing 
in red glory over the elm-tops it will be 
not more certain that he is coming than 
now when no faintest tinge of his smile 
paints the high orient gates. Never since 
the world swung round has he failed to 
come. He will come to-day. As she so 
thinks, a feeling of solemn, awful com- 
fort steals over her heart, at the sense of 
the utter certainty of the Hand — whoseso- 
ever it may be, wrangle as we may over 
that — that guides the world; the Hand 
that never makes an uncertain stroke or 
a blurred outline. 

“ It will be right ! ” she says, looking 
toward the east; her lovely sunk eyes 
serene with faith and reverence. “ By- 
and-by it will be right ! ” 


CHAPTER XI. 

It is now five days since the Der- 
ing pleasure-party. Even as a theme of 
school-room talk it is worn prematurely 
threadbare. In the natural course of 
things it might have outlasted a week, 
but, as it is, a new topic has elbowed it 
away. Of the fifth day there is now but 
little to run. In half an hour the sun 
will be gone. His fire-horses are stretch- 
ing in their last gallop. These are almost 
the latest arrows in his quiver, that he is 
shooting into the Smith Deloraine school- 
room. They are lighting up an overset 
ink-bottle, topsy-turvy chairs, dislocated 
grammars and disemboweled histories, j 
diverted from their natural uses to hurtle | 


as missiles through the air : a young 
Moenad, with rent gathers and tempestu- 
ous mane, flying in stormy gallop, armed 
with a fire-shovel over the prostrate fur- 
niture, in hot pursuit of two fugitive 
boys, both bellowing — the one with the 
joy of battle, the other with the fear. 
For the reign of Chaos and old Night has 
come again, and the young Smith Delo- 
raines have a month’s holiday. . 

This is the way in which they are in- 
augurating it. It is sudden and unlooked- 
for good fortune which mostly turns 
people’s heads. Perhaps it is the unex- 
pectedness of their boon of liberty which 
makes them, and frightfully, misuse it. 
A week ago no such emancipation was 
even talked of. But, to the surprise of 
every one. Miss Dering, whose summer 
holidays have been delayed thus late to 
suit her employer’s convenience, and 
who, indeed, has hitherto shown a great 
indifference as to whether she has any 
summer holidays at aU, has, on the day 
after the Dering party, jusked for — with 
a quiet insistance which makes refusal 
difiicult, and consequently obtained — a 
month’s leave of absence. To be off — to 
be well away before the day of An- 
thony’s announced return — this appears 
I to her the one necessity which for her 
life still holds. 

It seems as if stern-eyed angels had 
come to her as they came to ’Syrian Lot 
as he sat at eventide at his city gate in 
the old time, bidding her arise and flee 
for her life. And she, docilely listening 
to that inner voice, has arisen and fled. 
To-day she has been traveling all day 
long ; her head is full of noise, and her 
eyes of grit. But the railway part of 
her journey is now ended. In a hired 
fly she is tardily jogging through the 
suburbs of Helmsley. The horse goes 
but slowly after his kind. “Not nearly 
so fast as the butcher’s did,” she says to 
herself, with a grim smile of recollection ; 
so she has plenty of leisure to note the 
changes that two years and a half have 
'wrought. 


208 


JOAN. 


The scaffolding-poles are fev^er and 
the stuccoed houses more. The brick- 
fields have shrunk and the deodaras 
grown. The town is stretching out thriv- 
ing arms, which will soon take Portland 
Villa into their embrace. Even the hos- 
pital has thrown out an ugly wing from 
its bald, square bulk. The four little 
brother-villas are in sight now— even on 
them change has passed. Sardanapalus 
has paiuted its shutters green ; • Oampido- 
glio has added a story to its height. Only 
Portland Villa remains wholly unaltered, 
save for the necessary action of time and 
decay. There are a few more tiles miss- 
ing from the roof, a few more patches of 
plaster from the walls ; but that is all. 
The gate is still off its hinges, and still 
tied up with string. She looks out with 
interest, as the driver pulls and fumbles 
at it. To all appearance it is the identi- 
cal fragment of rotten cord which secured 
it when last she rolled through. 

They have turned in now ; down the 
little weedy drivq comes the old pattering 
ayalanche of dogs’ feet — the same halle- 
lujah chorus of loud pug voices. So to 
the sound of music Joan’s vehicle draws 
up at the portal. * 

“If you please, ’m,” says the driver, 
returning from a useless quest to the fly- 
door, “ I’m afraid I cannot ring, the bell 
is broke.” 

Still broken after two years and a 
half I On this particular occasion it is 
not of much consequence, as the door is 
now quickly opened, and the* aperture is 
filled with eager, welcoming faces — all 
one broad smile, with welcoming voices 
outdoing each other and almost the dogs 
in loud salutations. The next moment 
Joan is in her aunt’s copious embrace. 
One after another three pairs of substan- 
tial arms warmly infold her. A feeling of 
remorse nips the girl’s spirit that, after 
all, she has perhaps not set enough store 
by her place in these homely hearts. 
Long ago, indeed, she has repaid them, 
and with ample usury, her pecuniary 
obligations, but love is paid only by it- 


self. In this debt has not she been but 
a laggard debtor ? 

They have passed into the drawing- 
room now; one of Joan’s hands firmly 
held by Mrs. Moberley, the other by Di. 
Formerly she would have shrunk from 
having her fingers thus imprisoned ; but 
time and its austere experience of the 
outer world’s unlovingness have made 
her thankfully take’ affection’s clasp, even \ 
though it may be a rather sultry one. 

“ This is but a poor home-coming for 
you, Joan,” says Mrs. Moberley, sinking 
down into the roomy shabbiness of her 
own chimney-corner chair, and in so do- 
ing slightly protruding a boot burst in 
exactly the same place as of old. (Can 
it possibly, in defiance of all the proba- 
bilities of time and leather, be the same 
boot?) “But you gave us no notice, 
child; if you had sent us but the least 
pen-scratch a week ago, we would have 
had a few of them down from the Bar- 
racks to make a little fun ; they are not ” 
(shaking her head) “ as good a lot as our 
old ones — more inclined to be high, and 
not so ready to take one as they find one, 
but still ” — (with a smile of philosophic , 
satisfaction) — “ after all, the army is the 
army, when all is said and done.” 

“We did stare when we got your let- 
ter,” cries Bell, w'idely opening her large 
round eyes, her whole complacent, fat 
face, intricately towering hair, and length- 
ily floating curl, pleasantly agitated by 
curiosity. “ I tliink ” (looking down with 
an inexplicable air of consciousness) 

“ that, if we had not had a good many 
things to think of just lately, we should 
never have left off guessing and wonder- 
ing about it.” 

“No disagreeableness, I hope, Joan? ” 
says Mrs. Moberley, with a not unkindly 
inquisitiveness in her jovial eye. “You 
have not had any tiff with your mistress, 

I hope?” 

Mrs. Moberley can never be persuaded 
that there is any difference between the 
phraseology of servitude and that of tui- 
tion. Joan shakes her head. 


JOAN. 


209 


“ Oh no, nothing.” 

“ What does it matter vrhat has brought 
her ? ” cries Diana, brusquely, coming as 
of yore to the rescue, since she sees a 
look of disquiet and embarrassment on 
her cousin’s face ; “ that is her business ; 
she is here now — that is ours.” 

“ Of course,” answers Bell, still with 
a continuance of that mystic conscious- 
ness, and holding her head extremely on 
one side ; “ only that coming just now it 
happens so pat that one is almost inclined 
to think that there is something not quite 
canny about it.” 

“ To be sure ! ” cries Mrs. Moberley, 
heartily, brought back by this suggestion 
to the remembrance of their own glories 
and interests, which her niece’s arrival 
has momentarily thrust into the back- 
ground of her mind. — “ Well, Joan, what- 
ever you may have to tell us, we have a 
piece of news to tell you : we are going 
to have a wedding in the family ” — (her 
whole face breaking up into triumphant 
smiles, and putting on her spectacles, the 
better to watch the effect of her commu- 
nication on her niece’s countenance). 
“ What do you think of that ? ” 

“Indeed!” cries Joan, in an accent 
of unaffected interest and excitement, her 
look involuntarily turning at once toward 
the rustic charms of Diana, with an in- 
ward wonder as to whether the tardy 
Micky has at length come to the front; 
her feelings divided between physical re- 
pulsion from the idea of him as a first- 
cousin, and joy at the thought of poor 
Diana’s long fidelity meeting with its re- 
ward. 

But Diana shakes her curly head. 

“ You need not look at me ! it is not 
I ; I am still to be had ! ” she says, dryly. 

“Bell, then!” 

But Bell is in no case to reply. Vir- 
gin shame has too completely mastered 
her. It is only from the ineffable bliss 
and hurt modesty of her large, drooped 
face that Joan can gather her answer. 

“ The first break in a family is a sad 
thincr,” says Mrs. Moberley, trying to sub- 
14 


due her jubilant features into a decent 
semblance of pensive regret; “but in 
other respects I am sure I have not a 
word to say ! One of our old lot and of 
her poor papa’s profession, and altogether 
— I have always said ” — (with a relieved 
lapse into mirth, as sudden as the’ leap 
back into uprightness of an unstrung 
bow) — “that it would be very handy to 
have a medical man in the family ! ” 

“He is the doctor in the 170th,” says 
Diana, with laconic explanation; “don’t 
you remember him ? we never would 
dance with him.” 

“ The regiment is at Cork now,” con- 
tinues Mrs. Moberley, her complacent flow 
of narrative undisturbed by her second 
daughter’s uncomplimentary observation ; 
“ the bride and bridegroom are to join 
at once after the wedding ; there she will 
be among all the old set, and quite one of 
themselves too now. I declare I can’t 
help envying her! as I said to him the 
other 'day ” (beginning again to laugh), 
“ I have half a mind to marry him myself.” 

“It is quite an old attachment,” says 
Bell, having by this time recovered the 
power of utterance, though she still speaks 
in a small, coy voice, as if she were saying 
something indecent. “ It is more than 
two years since he began to be particular. 
I remember so well that the first time I 
noticed anything out of the way was the 
day that you and Mrs. Wolferstan passed 
us in the barouche; we had just been 
changing hats for a bit of fun, and you 
came round the corner so suddenly upon 
us, that we had scarcely time to change 
back. I thought I should have expired ! 
I remember liis saying what a pretty girl 
you were, and that he hoped you would 
get a good husband.” 

Three years ago Joan would have 
shuddered and shrunk like a touched sen- 
sitive-plant at hearing such a wish ex- 
pressed by such lips, but time has made 
her more lenient. 

“ It was very good of him,” she says, 
smiling gently and without irony; “I 
pass on the wish to you now heartily.” 


210 


JOAN. 


“lie is not a bit like a doctor when 
yon come to know him,” says Mrs. Mo- 
berley, narratively;, “quite a sporting 
fellow in his way, and almost as fond of 
his jokes as Micky was. Ah, Micky 1 ” 
—(with a sigh bracketed between two 
smiles) — ’“ we were all a little disappoint- 
ed in him, I think. He was one of those 
that love and that ride away.” 

As she speaks she glances meaningly 
in the direction of Diana, which would 
sufficiently explain her allusion, were 
there any present to whom it needed 
explanation. There is a temporary si- 
lence. 

Joan’s eyes have -wandered round the 
little room with a far more eager interest, 
if with infinitely less surprise and con- 
tempt, than they did on the first evening 
of her coming ; its shabby, cheap smart- 
ness is now as nothing to her. The tragic 
memories with which almost every article 
of its commonplace, sordid furniture is 
loaded, have cast out and abolished all 
the feelings of hurt taste and msthetic 
disgust with which they had formerly 
filled her. There is the very door, with 
its paint almost entirely scratched off for 
a good foot above the ground by the dogs 
in their requests for exit and entry, against 
which she had set her back to forbid Mrs. 
Wolferstan’s escape, while she wrung from 
her that bitter secret which has since 
made dark all her fair white life and his 
too. There is the faded, once gaudy table- 
cloth on which he had desperately flung 
down his brown head when he came to 
her on that snowy midnight in his mad- 
ness. There — to go back to earlier, lighter 
memories — ^is the identical trumpery vase 
in which she had grudgingly set his covet- 
ed flowers. How unchanged it all is I Is 
it possible that she has been away at all? 
As she so thinks her eyes faU on the dogs, 
who are now politely but firmly smelling 
her all over before readmitting her into 
the family. Then, indeed, doubt as to 
the period of her absence from Portland 
Villa is at an end. Time has plenteously 
poured his snows on Mr. Brown’s serious 


face, and has turned even his stiff whis- 
kers white; while from Eegy and Algy 
the trifling, if amiable, levity that so emi- 
nently distinguished them has forever 
disappeared. It would ill sit upon dogs 
of such a portly respectability as theirs. 
They look as if they were householders, 
rate - payers, almost church -wardens; 
while as for Charlie, his place knows him 
no more. Joan’s meditations are presently 
broken in upon by the voice of Bell, timid 
and virginal as before. 

“ He was anxious to come in this even- 
ing,” she says, bashfully, “ but I would 
not hear of it. One must ” — (simpering) 
— “ draw the line somewhere. There is 
no saying how much he wishes to see 
you ; he says he is sure he shall feel much 
more like a brother than a cousin to you.” 

“I am afraid that we shall have to 
make rather a smart turn out of it,” says 
Mrs. Moberley, trying to temper with a few 
grains of factitious regret tke exuberant, 
frolicsome jollity of her eyes and tone ; 
“people seem to expect it of us: half a 
dozen bridesmaids and a groom apiece ; 
there is the beauty of a garrison town — 
one never need run short of beaux ! They 
say ’’^ — (throwing a hopeful and encourag- 
ing look upon her niece and younger 
daughter) — “that one marriage makes 
many. Well, we shall see! ” 


CHAPTER XII. 

“ .... Was the trial sore ? 
Temptation sharp ? Thank God I a second 
time 

Why comes temptation but for man to meet 
And master and make crouch beneath his foot, 
And so be pedestaled in triumph ? ” 

The Ring and the Book. 

Joan’s return is now a three-days-old 
event. She is no longer treated with 
guest-privileges or guest-formality, but 
has subsided easily, and as a matter of 
course, into her niche as one of them- 
selves. Even their curiosity as to the 


JOAN-. 


211 


cause of lier sudden reappearance among 
them — a curiosity which ought to he all 
the keener, seeing that it is never grati- 
fied — has died, swallowed up by the more 
absorbing and personal topics of Bell’s 
trousseau. Bell’s cake, Bell’s bridesmaids. 

Joan has smiled to herself once or 
twice with ironic sadness at the recollec- 
tion of her unnecessary fears as to the 
difficulty she would find in parrying their 
questions and baffling their kindly inquis- 
itiveness ; when, in fact, there is after all 
no one sufficiently interested in the mat- 
ter to try to force the lock, or even turn 
the key of her shut confidence. 

It is afternoon now. All morning 
she has been diligently stitching at Bell’s 
going-away gown, which, after the wed- 
ding-dress itself, is, perhaps, the culmi- 
nating point of interest in the whole cor- 
beille ; stitching as she formerly stitched 
at the alpacas, which were destined to fill 
with awful Admiration the men, and with 
panic-struck envy the women of the 
170th regiment. She has no longer in- 
deed any Paris patterns to sacrifice ; hut 
what she has — her skilled labor, her ar- 
tistic instinct, her patience, and her taste 
— she gives readily ; more readily, indeed, 
with a greater simplicity, and less sense 
of being a martyr, than in the old time. 

She is rewarded by Bell’s exuberant 
gratitude, and by her expansive assurance 
that “she will do as much for her when 
her hour comes ! ” (with an affected sigh 
and a proud smile) ; by Mrs. Moberley’s 
encouraging asseveration that “ she would 
save any man that married her fifty 
pounds a year ; and that she, Mrs. Mob- 
erley, will take care to let him know it; ” 
and by the silent but admiring gratitude 
of Diana’s eyes. 

She is free now ; free for the whole 
afternoon ; free to go wherever she lists, 
except into the Portland Villa drawing- 
room, which, on these latter days, has, 
fro-m dinner to tea-time, been consecrated 
as a temple of love, into which no pro- 
fane foot dare to intrude. She has, there- 
fore, set out on a walk with the dogs. 


During the last two days she has been 
making sad pilgrimages to the scenes 
where her short love-drama played itself 
out ; as one that, returning after absence, 
to find dead those whom he left alive, 
travels pensively from new grave to new 
grave. 

Yesterday she stood among the sand- 
hills, looking seaward; trying again to 
set her feet with melancholy accuracy in 
exactly that spot of the waste sameness 
where she had mistakenly, and to his life- 
long hurt, renounced him. To-day her 
steps are carrying her toward the little 
wood where, in the lusty spring-time, 
sung to by loud thrush-voices, they had 
sat side by side, on a primrose couch, and 
innocently talked. 

The day is cloudy and there is a good 
deal of wind ; not a summer wind, softly 
frolicsome, but with a tart touch of au- 
tumn in its breath. It is blowing all the 
leaves inside out, and coldly showing their 
whitish under-sides. Joan shivers. She 
has no inner warmth to make up for the 
outside chilliness. Her limbs draw them- 
selves languidly one after the other : all 
the spring seems to have gone out of her 
young body. 

The battle is over, indeed, and the vic- 
tory won, but the victor’s Joy is not yet 
hers. The day after the battle is often a 
greater trial of nerve than the battle it- 
self. The long strain of effort is ended ; 
the painful, high excitement is cold and 
dead. The blood that ran so hotly tin- 
gling along her veins creeps sluggish and 
slow ; the heart that pulsed with such an 
agony of speed and energy beats low* and 
faint. She has fought, and she has con- 
quered ; and for this she is humbly aware 
that she is thankful. But it is rather a 
knowledge stored in the background of 
her heart than a feeling of any activity 
or life. To-day all the chords of her be- 
ing are vibrating to another touch. 

Her whole tired soul and unstrung 
body are crying out in the human creat- 
ure’s bitter yearning for personal happi- 
ness; in that heart -hunger which is 


212 


JOAN. 


stayed sometimes by bope, but which, 
evea in farthest old age, is never quite 
extinguished — to be only twenty-three, 
and in all the p(5ssible, nay, probable, long 
years ahead to have nothing but pale res- 
ignation, hard self-sacrifice, long, cold en- 
deavor to look forward to. Peer and 
gaze as she may into the gray, dim future 
before her, she knows that she will see 
it lit by no glimmer of warm household 
hearth ; by no shining of husband’s smile, 
or children’s laughing eyes. 

Alone, alone, alone, to the very end, 
which makes us all equal, seeing that in 
death we are every one alone. And if her 
own prospect is so unsmiling, neither can 
she draw any solace from the considera- 
tion of his. Tears, bitterer than any that 
her own fate has ever called forth from 
her, steal now into her eyes as she thinks 
of him — of his altered look, and feverish 
gladness ; of his empty heart and home- 
less home ; worst of all, thinks — for love 
in her case is not blind — of his pliant, 
malleable nature, so easily moulded by 
the influences that are nearest to him; 
thinks, too, of what those influences are. 

“ If he had been of a higher nature,” 
she says to herself in an agony of almost 
mother-love, so absolutely clean and free 
from all taint of passion or selfishness is 
it — “if he had been of a higher nature, 
stronger, more self-contained, I could 
have better let him go, since he could 
have better done without me ! ” 

She has reached the wood now, and 
is out of the rough wind’s reach. She 
has sat down at a birch-foot, and clasped 
her hands round her knees while her 
eyes stray pensively over the woodland 
pageant round her. It is quite a different 
show from that which Nature set before 
her on that her first visit, which to-day 
brings so vividly back. Then everything 
was waxing; now everything is waning. 
There is now no abundant noise of loud 
music in the air ; only once and again a 
little robin’s pipe, wintrily cheerful as if 
it were his duty, not his pleasure, to sing. 
"Where the primroses opened their young 


eyes on a strong new world there are 
only long, limp leaves, sapless and out- 
worn; and where the low violets shook 
out their perfume, and the ground-ivy 
spread its little blue carpet, the sorrel 
and the ragwort, that sadly close the pro- 
cession of the summer flowers, reign un- 
loved and alone. 

Joan’s mind is too heavily freighted 
with its own load to be consciously oc- 
cupied by a comparison between that day 
and this ; but perhaps, without her know- 
ing it, the changed and sobered scene 
adds its quota to her weight of sadness. 
Even the dogs that on that April day gal- 
loped and rummaged among the dead 
leaves and brushwood in such a frenzy of 
happy bustle, seem now, in their staid ma- 
turity, to condemn the resultless chases 
of their youth. Mr. Brown’s venerable 
form is already curled in slumber. From 
his hoary nose, snores of a human loud- 
ness and frequency have already begun to 
ascend. Regy. and Algy, who during the 
last day or two have been nourishing some 
mysterious grievance in their breasts, 
are now showing their contempt for one 
another by walking very slowly close 
round each other with tails curled to the 
ne plus ultra of tightness ; stepping very 
high, and growling. 

Joan has closed her eyes, weary with 
all her late tears. One hand lies nerve- 
less, palm upward in her lap ; the other 
rests on Mr. Brown's head. Her cheek 
is leaned against the shining white-birch 
bark ; and above her the delicate birch- 
boughs sway and droop. From the land 
of waking reverie, dark and clouded, Joan 
is passing into the fairer domain of dream. 
What stoutest fighter may not, after the 
battle is over, lay his head on his knap- 
sack, and sweetly, deeply sleep ? But let 
him be quite sure that it is over. O 
Joan! you have laid your buckler and 
your sword too soon aside. 

The hottest of your fight has yet to 
come. I think that Joan never knows in 
the after-time how long her light doze 
lasts — that doze so doubtfully hovering 


J 0 AiT. 


213 


on the debatable land. But suddenly, in 
one moment, she has sprung into broad 
■wakefulness again, 'to find herself sitting 
bolt upright; the dogs at variance, but 
now united in one vociferous din of angry 
barking ; to find her own heart bound- 
ing, as if it would leap away from her 
body; to find, lastly, one standing over 
her, death-pallid, statue-still — one from 
whom five days ago she fled for her life! 

“ Did you think that you had escaped 
me? ” he says slowly, in a hollow voice, 
not holding out his hand or offering her 
any other greeting. 

She has drawn herself to her feet. 
One weak hand grasps the tree-trunk, so 
late her pillow, for support. Her eyes 
look steadfastly into the unsteadfast 
wretchedness of his. In hers there is 
none of the stunned surprise, the bewil- 
dered horror, that had filled them when 
on that other day he had roughly burst 
at midnight upon her sad reverie. They 
are occupied only by an unnamed pain. 

“ Why have you cOme ? ” she says in a 
voice that is almost compassionate, stern, 
yet most gentle too. 

Under that voice he winces, and a 
shiver runs over all his body. 

“ When you look at me like that,” he 
says, shuddering, “when you look at me 
like that, you make me feel as if I were 
some unclean creeping thing, that must 
crawl away out of your sight ; but yet — 
but yet” — stammering and breathing 
. heavily, as one oppressed by some great 
and ponderous weight — “ to-day not even 
your eyes shall daunt me! — for once I 
shake off their tyranny ! ” 

He stops suddenly, as if suffocated, 
and so stands, with dilating nostrils and 
clinched hands, before her. 

“ Why have you come? ” she repeats, 
in the same tone of inexorable icy gentle- 
ness, still holding him with that austere 
yet pitying gaze. 

“ I will tell you,” he says, collecting 
himself with a great effort, and speaking 
almost in a whisper ; “ it will not take 
long in the telling. I have come ” (dwell- 


ing with slow and heavy emphasis on 
each word) “ here, where I once offered 
you wealth, honor, love, to offer you to- 
day poverty, dishonor, but love still, love 
always, love to the end! — one can give 
but what one has ; this is all I now have 
to give.” 

He need no longer complain of the 
diminution of her eyes ; she has slowly 
dropped them, and has turned away from 
him with a low groan. 

Until to-day it had seemed to her that 
she has already, in her short life, often 
I and deeply supped of sorrow ; but now 
she knows that till this moment she has 
but sparsely tasted it. What personal 
loss, grief, bereavement, could be named 
in the same breath with the immedicable 
pain of witnessing, helping, nay, causing 
this debasement of the beloved ? She 
utters not a word ; but no torrent of re- 
proach or invective could give him such 
a sense of aloofness from her as does 
that eloquent dumbness. 

“ Is this all your answer? ” he says, 
unsteadily ; “ this abhorrent gesture — 
this stony silence ? I tell you ” — (with 
gathering excitement) — “ that I cannot 
bear it ! — say, do whatever else you will, 
but do not dare to set me at this cold, 
contemptuous distance away from and 
below you ! Do not make me feel as if 
I were a murderer ! Joan ! — Joan ! — 
Joan ! ” (with a sudden change of key, 
spreading out his hands to her, with an 
exceeding great and bitter cry). “ Come 
to me! — I that in love’s name have a 
right to command ! — I that love you, and 
whom you love — I command you, come 
to me ! ” 

There was a time when to that sum- 
mons her whole soul would have gone 
out in glad and ready acquiescence ; but 
now, if it had been addressed to the 
dumb ears of one already dead, it could 
not have met with less answer. Only a 
quivering of the eyelids, only a slight 
twitching of the pale, set lips, show that 
she has heard it. 

“ You know what my life is,” he goes 


214 


JOAN. 


on, in a rough, low voice, as though afraid 
that if he paused for one moment, or gave 
himself any breathing-space, his nerve 
would fail him ; killed by the stony mis- 
ery of that face of hers ; “ you have seen 
with your own eyes — close, so that there 
can be no mistake about it — that ghastly 
comedy, that caricature, that I am pleased 
to call my marriage ! ” — (with a most 
bitter sneer) — “you know, as well as I 
do, that this is a theft that robs no 
one! — Joan! ” — (his voice rising to new 
heights of woful entreaty) — “ I tell you 
that in all this wide, full world there is 
not one living soul but you that wants 
me ! Can it be a sin to take what none 
grudges you ? ” But still there is neither 
voice nor movement — only the grave, 
green forest silence. “ Speak! ” he cries, 
maddened by her dumbness, laying his 
hand heavily on her shoulder, as if to 
wake her out of sleep; “speak! speak! 
— you can say nothing for which I have 
not an answer ready. You can use no 
words to me that I have not already used 
to myself beforehand. Speak! — there is 
no extremity of your anger which I am 
not prepared to bear the brunt of ; but, 
in the name of all mercy and sanity, let 
it be an anger that speaks.” 

Then, indeed, she obeys him. 

“ Anger ! ” she repeats, lifting her 
eyes with difficulty, as if there were some 
great weight, from the grassy earth at 
her foot, to the smoke-gray sky, faintly 
seen between the tossing tree-tops over- 
head; and speaking very slowly, in a 
tone of heaviest, heart-wrung anguish. 
“ Anger ! does one hurt as I am feel an- 
ger f ” 

At the unmeasured sorrow yet meek- 
ness of her words, a wave of unspeakable 
shame and remorse rolls over his stormy 
soul ; but it is too late to go back now. 

“ You know what my life is,” he goes 
on, desperately ; pushing away from his 
forehead the hair, damp and matted with 
the cold sweat of that agony. “You 
have sounded all the depths of its hideous 
emptiness ; have not I read it often in the 


pity of your face ? you know what — but 
for you — it might have been ! honest and 
just as you are, do you dare to look me 
in the face and tell me that you owe me 
no reparation? ” 

At his words she gives a low cry. Is 
not this her own thought that is now 
bodied out in his words ? Is not this the 
doubt that, for a week past, has been 
giving her fevered nights and troubled 
wakings ? this, that now, dressed as cer- 
tainty, so blackly fronts? This is her 
doing, then ! It is she that has brought 
him to this pass. She flings Iter arms up 
and clasps her hands with a gesture of 
uttermost despair. 

“ It is dark ! ” she says, stammering- 
ly — “ oh ! dark ! dark ! What greater 
depth of darkness can there be than 
when Wrong wears Eight’s face? — right! 
— wrong ! ” she repeats, a little wildly ; 
“the one is a word, and the other is 
a word; and I do not know which is 
which! but yet — ^but yet” — (lifting her 
haggard eyes uncertainly) — “ I know that 
on the other side of this night God’s day 
is shining, though no gleam — none — 
comes to me here now ! ” 

Her voice dies away in a sob ; and, 
for a while, there is a miserable silence. 
Then Anthony breaks once again into un- 
steady speech. 

“ If you think that it is only a mad, 
unreflecting rage of mere passion that 
has brought me here,” he says, in a thick, 
low voice, “ you are wrong ! I think that 
any such would fall dead under the re- 
buke of your eyes! Joan, you were al- 
ways calling me to rise to the better life ; 

I tell you I cannot ! Without you I can- 
not! I summon you to a task that is 
worthy of you ! Joan, I adjure you, come 
to me, and show me how to believe again 
that there are such things as charity, 
reverence, high-hearted selflessness in the 
world! In the atmosphere in which I 
live I am fast growing to disbelieve in 
the existence of such things ! In the name 
of all justice, all compassion, help me to 
rebuild my faith ! ” 


JOAN. 


215 


As lie speaks she turns, and, facing 
him, fixes him with a steadfast regard. 
The wildness has gone out of her eyes, 
they have resumed their look of infinite 
pity, of meek, unmeasured woe. 

“This is my punishment, then,” she 
says, in an intense low voice ; “I am fit- 
ly chastised for my presumption in think- 
ing that my love for you was of so high 
and pure a quality that no unclean thing 
could come nigh it ; I would have med- 
dled with the functions of the angels,” 
she says, “and now ” — (breaking into an 
agony of s^bing) — “ what basest, vilest 
among women could have dragged you 
lower, or sunk you deeper, than I 
have ! ” 

Again there is a silence, broken only 
by the slender woodland noises. Antho- 
ny has thrown himself on the ground, and 
suddenly covered his face with his hands, 
as if to take shelter from that gaze of 
hers, intolerable else. By-and-by she 
speaks again : “ I did you a wrong,” she 
says, very humbly, in a soft and broken 
voice — “a great wrong; I see it now; I 
would have loved you better than other 
women loved, and instead I loved you 
worse! I wanted to be kinder to you 
than any other, and instead I have been 
crueler than any ! I made a mistake, and 
in my obstinacy and self-opinion I clove 
to it in the face of all reason and sense ; 
yes, I did you a wrong, and for that” — 
(her self-command giving way a little) — 
“I have been asking your pardon on 
my heart’s knees for the last two years 
and a half ! If it makes your pain any 
easier to know that I suffer too, well, 
then, I can truly tell you that in all 
God’s armory I think there is no sharp- 
er sword than that with which I am to- 
day smitten.” 

At the exceeding gentleness and ruth 
of her tone he takes courage to drop his 
shielding hands. It is no longer the up- 
braiding angel that speaks — it is the wom- 
an who loved him and lay in his arms. 
He lifts his miserable gray eyes haggard- 
ly to hers. 


“Day and night, day and night, day 
and night I ” he says, with a slow and 
dragging emphasis; “Joan, have you 
counted how many days and nights there 
are in fifty years? We are strong and 
healthy I — there is no reason why we 
should not live for fifty years 1 ” 

The dark, apathetic despair of his voice 
makes her own heart sink lead -heavy 
within her. She sits down on the leafy 
couch of herbs and moss beside him. In 
neither attitude nor look is there any 
smallest shrinking from him. 

“ It is dark 1 — dark ! ” she says, in an 
awed whisper; then, after a pause, lift- 
ing to his her streaming eyes, in which 
there is yet a ray of purest, tenderest 
heaven - light — “ Anthony ! ” she says, 
solemnly, “ whether it be ten, or twenty, 
or fifty years, I think that neither you 
nor I will be able to bear our lives unless 
we lay fast hold of the thought that out of 
our mistakes God builds up his complete- 
ness.” 

There is a long, long silence. Those 
last high words of hers have tied the 
young man’s tongue, and stemmed the 
torrent of his agonized, mad pleading. 
Of what use any longer to stretch out his 
empty, rash arms to hers ? She has soared 
beyond their reach. In utter dumbness 
they sit side by side ; he has again cov- 
ered his face with his hands. Only a low 
groan of extremest pain now and then 
disturbs the stillness. The green gloom 
of the wood has grown deeper ; the night 
is gently falling. 

By-and-by, with a long, soft sigh, Joan 
slowly rises to her feet. Her movement 
rouses her companion from his stupor. 
For a moment, before she can stop him, 
he has thrown himself prone before her 
in the grass. 

“ Trample me ! ” he says, in a hoarse, 
rough voice. “ I am not worthy that you 
should set your dear feet on my neck! 
Oh, high, pure love ! ” (lifting his bowed 
head and his face disfigured and furrowed 
by tears), “ who have ever warmly striven 
to lift 'me to your level, forgive me that. 


216 


JOAN. ' 


bnite-like, following my nature, I have 
striven to drag you down to mine ! ” , 

At his words she stretches out both 
her hands to him, with a solemn smile of 
pardon and farewell. 

“ Love,” she says, very sweetly, while, 
for the last time, her blue eyes wetly 
dwell on his — “ for this once I may call 
you so, seeing that it is as if I stood by 
your death-bed — love, you used to tell me 
that I. was your guardian angel — your 
better self! and of all your tender names 
there were none that I so dearly loved ; 
perhaps it is a foolish thought, but suffer 
me to keep them still I Suffer me to 
think that by-and-by, in the after-time, 
when life is going hardly with you — when 
the earth-fogs close around you, and the 
satyr-voices call you down — that then, 
perhaps, my face, my voice, which hither- 
to have brought you nothing but disquiet 
and woe, may be present with you in 
memory, as a solace and a sustainment ! ” 
Then, without another word, she slowly 



draws away her hands from his, and, with 
one solemnest good-by smile, passes away 
from him into the falling night. 


POSTSCEIPT. 

Peiends, are you content thus to leave 
Joan? Are you willing thus to let the 
curtain fall over her? If so, read no 
further. If not, let me by all means lift 
a corner of it for you ; by all means look 
once again. . If, two years later than the 
incidents related in tlie last chapter, you 
had, on one dewy, bright morning of late 
summer, carefully read your Times adver- 
tisement-sheet, you would undoubtedly 
have seen among the deaths this insertion : 

“ On the 5th instant, at 8 Curzon Street, 
suddenly, ‘of apoplexy,’ Lalage, wife of An- 
thony Wolferstan, late Colonel Grenadier- 
Guards, aged twenty-eight.” 

I say no more ! 


END. 




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